She sits near the window, her cataract-clouded eyes staring at the street. She doesn’t see the shadows stretching before the sun, or the leaves changing from green to yellow and brown before they shrivel and fall. Nor does she see the snow settle on the bare branches. Instead, she sees the young woman in a red dress who gazes pleadingly, with helpless adoration, at the young man who looks away.
She doesn’t hear the geese chat as they fly south, or the children laugh, shriek, and run from house to house collecting their candy. Nor does she hear their snowball fights. Instead, she hears his footsteps fade while a hand gently slaps a rhythm against the body of a guitar. Ta, ta, ta, ta-ta-ta.
She doesn’t smell the cabbage lingering from yesterday’s lunch or the arthritis cream clinging to her hands. Instead, she smells cigar smoke, rich coffee, biting liquor, and the heady scent of perfumes failing to cover sweating bodies.
After years of lessons after a full day’s work, after grueling hours of practice, the young woman takes a deep breath. Her heart pounds and her thoughts swirl. Nervously, she brushes her palms over the flirty skirt of her red dress. Pushing all else from her mind, she pulls her shoulders back, holds her head high and takes carefully calculated steps to her spot on the floor.
There she stands, hips balanced, back arched, shoulders relaxed, hands open by her side. She tilts and turns her head to her left, showing off her slender neck. Her eyes are down. Slowly, she allows the audience to fade and the room to disappear and waits for the spotlight to caress her and allow the jewels and the rose in her hair to sparkle.
The instruments are tuned, the soft rhythm from the guitar is insistently mesmerizing and subtly joined by a drum. The barman has stopped service. A single tendril of cigar smoke rises to the haze-filled ceiling. A discrete cough, a chair scrapes over the wooden floor, a shush.
When the spot springs to life, an audible sigh ripples through the audience at seeing the exquisite elegance of the woman caught under the light. Measured footsteps blend with the guitar’s rhythm and the brush caressing the drum. Black polished shoes walk around and stop in front of her. His left hand reaches out; a finger turns her chin. A reassuring wink as his hand snakes around her waist and yanks her against him.
A stifled gasp from the back of the room.
Her left hand slides up his arm, fingers tightening near his shoulder. They stare into each other’s eyes and feel their heartbeat synchronize with the beat from the instruments. The saxophone’s pining wail follows his finger as it slides from her chin, over her shoulder and down her arm. A lingering touch at the back of her wrist before wrapping his hand around hers. The moment he pulls his shoulders back and lifts their hands, the drum riffs, the saxophone blares, and the guitar plays the first notes of the tango.
Ta, ta, ta, ta-ta-ta…
The old woman smiles, still hearing the intoxicating music and feeling her body move as if one with her dance partner. How their heads swiveled, hips gyrated, legs strode, stepped, and turned. Absorbed in breathing, sweating, living.
For those few minutes, the work that came before, the exhaustion, missteps, corrections, and repetitions are forgotten. They are insignificant memories. As long as she dances she can forget the ultimatum from moments before. Him or dance.
Though she sits alone at the window and sees the past, hears the music and feels the movements that her stiff body can’t replicate any more, she never regretted choosing dance. She is still dancing in the sanctuary of her memories.
INSTANT NOODLES 