The Dance of Echoes

My shallow breaths fail to fill my lungs. I need air. I begin walking on the sidewalk. A silver sliver of the moon lights the dark sky. Traffic is super light on Main Street. It’s practically deserted as businesses and restaurants begin to close on Friday Eve. I breathe in the stale summer air, warm and thick after a 90-degree day. It’s better than nothing after the nightmare I just had. I just can’t shake it.

A tall slender older gentleman, graying just above his ears, in black slacks, a white shirt, and black vest waves me over as I pass under the neon pink glow of Arturo’s Dancing After Dark. He reaches for my hand. I take it, intrigued by his smile. He playfully spins me around. “A free dance lesson inside might help clear your mind,” he says. “Our next lesson starts in 3 minutes. Are you interested?”

I’m still reeling from the nightmare I had after my short evening catnap. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on the couch watching a Nicolas Cage movie. I woke up gasping for air. I’ve had this same nightmare for several years. It happens like this:

I approach a huge crowd of people in a damp, dark warehouse. We’re all dressed in circa 1900 fashion. They’re in dark brown, charcoal gray, and brown common clothing, wearing dark hats. I stand out, wearing high fashion – a maxi-long blood red skirt with black, red, and gold embroidery outlining the train, a matching short bolero jacket, and a high-neck white-laced blouse tied with a black velvet bow. Chiffon red and pink roses adorn my lavish hat and trail down off my neck. I feel the flora brush my skin as I look around desperately like I’m in a panic or in a hurry. Men and women are milling around a panel of windows. They’re in my way. They’re speaking French, I think. Unfortunately, I can’t understand what they’re saying. I try to fight through the crowd but they push and pull me, this way and that.

It seems like a zoo exhibit. People are gawking at whatever is behind the paneled glass. But I can’t see the display yet. The crowd obstructs my view. You know how you see weird things in your dreams that don’t make any sense at all, I see all kinds of clothing hanging on hooks above the enclosure. Are we window shopping? But the clothes are worn through. Some are tattered, threadbare, and dirty. Others are sun-faded, stained, or dingy. When I finally confront the glass, I suck in a deep breath after a glimpse and scream. I fall back, feeling faint, only to have a man capture me in his arms before I hit the floor and then, I’M WIDE AWAKE…

My heart pounds. I always wonder what frightened me in the dream. I need a break from my visions and worried impressions, so I agree to the dance lesson and follow Arturo up the creaky steps to his dance studio. He speaks as he rushes up the stairs and I sprint to keep up with him. “The lesson now starts in 2 minutes. I like being punctual. I have the perfect partner for you. His regular partner couldn’t make it tonight,” he explains. “You seem to be in the right place at the right time.” Luckily, my slip-on canvas shoes won’t give me blisters as I dance the night (and nightmare) away.

Arturo is paces ahead of me. He intercepts a man with his back to the doorway. His dark wavy hair rests on his neck. The dance instructor places a hand on the man’s right shoulder, gently squeezing it. “Michael, I found a dance partner for you. Here she is,” he says, pointing in my direction. “One minute, ladies and gentleman.”

My partner turns around and takes a step toward me. In the blink of an eye, a magnet seems to draw us closer together while the ballroom pulls away, mimicking a zolly shot. The walls behind Michael melt like Salvador Dali’s desert watches, and the dance music dissolves into a hovering hum like the buzz you hear from overhead fluorescent lights.

I fall into the arms of my dance stranger.

His bowler hat falls as he catches me before I hit the ground. I grab onto his black frock coat for extra support.

“You?,” I whisper. “Where are we?”

“La Morgue de Paris, mademoiselle.”

From 1804 to 1907, the Paris Morgue was open to the public for identification purposes, turning the display of unclaimed bodies into a spectacle. The morgue became an unlikely carnival sideshow, drawing up to 40,000 visitors per day, according to newspapers of the time. The gruesome attraction finally closed to the public after accusations of desecration and immoral reasons.

Michael quickly becomes bilingual, speaking partly in his native tongue and English with a very sexy French accent. “You nearly evanouie, swooned?”

“Fainted?”

“Oui. Oui.”

I turn my head toward the display as I release myself from his lovely grasp to see a young man about 15 years old, lying in a morbid state of death on a marble slab. The boy’s head and shoulders are slightly raised off the table cradled on a wedge-shaped head block. Cold water, I presume, drips on the young man’s chest slowly trickling off the sides and down his navel. I begin to cry from horror, bewilderment, and relief that the boy is not my brother.

“He’s not here. I shouldn’t be here,” I say and begin to back away and bump into Michael.

“You’re here because you’ve lost un être cher like most of us,” he says. “But you are a chanceuse, a lucky woman since your loved one is not here.” He points to the woman next to the boy. “She was murdered. Her throat cut from ear to ear then dumped in la Seine like a common sea urchin.” He weeps. He must have known her. It’s my turn to sweep him into my arms as he cries on my shoulder. I’m in mourning, too, for my missing brother. I’m completely heartbroken and shattered without finality. Will he ever be found?

Michael’s fingers tighten around mine as I blink again and the world reassembles itself like a reverse bubble pop. The ballroom snaps into focus and Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” surges back in mid-chord. Arturo’s voice cuts through sudden and brightly: “A lovely night, everyone. Let’s warm up with a waltz.”

Michael looks just as shaken as I feel. His dark eyes are wide, lips parted around a word that won’t come – until it does, with a raw recognition: “You.”

I nod, also mute.

“I feel like I’ve known you in a, in a, in a…” He falters because the truth is unspeakable, too vast to fit into mere syllables.

“In another lifetime,” I whisper.

“But a tragic one,” he says gruffly with the weight of the memory neither of us can decipher yet.

I pull my hand away from his. The warmth lingers. Like a phantom touch or is it a premonition?

The waltz spins on. His outstretched hand still hangs between us like a bridge. I can’t decide whether to run or seek safety in his arms again.

Glass shatters in a corner of the room. I look down at his hand again. Smears of blood with my name, Kate, in cursive are swiped across his upturned palm. “Dance with me,” he says, wriggling his fingers trying to lure me in for the waltz.

I slowly shake my head. I step back then run down the stairs and out the door, wondering how the last 3 minutes will haunt the rest of my life.