Adrienne Celt: The Daughters

“ Shoosh ,” she said, sweeping her hand through the air and then smacking it against the other one. “ Boom .

“And why? Why? No one knew. They just felt their breath coming fast and short. And they decided they should fly like the birds — or at least they should do the next best thing. The boys bowed”—Ada tilted her chin—“and the girls curtsied”—she flicked her chin back up. “And they all flooded out onto the dance floor. Like petals,” she said. “Like petals in a rainstorm.

“As the boys and girls danced, the room filled up with the heat of their bodies. Steam curled off the girls’ naked shoulders and from under the collars of young boys’ shirts. The dancers’ faces were covered with little beads of sweat, like jewels, and instead of annoying them it just made them more eager. They shook their hair to get out the water. And they danced two-steps. Foxtrots. Every type of dance they knew. Until the boards under their feet got so hot they glowed.

“Just as the heat was really raging, just as the room was about to flash and erupt into flames, just as the factory inhaled a breath to release up the walls with a woof . ”

Ada paused.

“What?” I squirmed, tapping her leg with my toes through the blanket.

She clamped a hand over my feet and clicked her tongue. Pinched her eyes into slits and peered at me, half smiling.

“Do you really want to know?”

“I do .”

“Well, all right. Just then a gust of wind blew the door open with a bang. Standing in the doorway was a girl. She wore a dress as red as holly berries.”

“Is it Greta?” I asked.

“Of course,” Ada said. “Of course it’s Greta. And when she crossed the threshold into the hall, the heat was snuffed out”—she licked her thumb and pressed it to the pad of her index finger—“like a flame. One moment the dancers were pink in the cheeks. In the next, they were frozen into sculptures of ice.”

I closed my eyes and smiled. Tried to breathe in a whiff of winter air.

“But this forces us again to ask a question: Why did Greta choose to freeze them? What need did she have for such silence, such a chill? They were her townspeople, after all — familiar with her dirty childhood feet and uncombed hair, the wildness of her arms and legs.

“Was she jealous of them for the heat of their dancing? Maybe she was.

“For the townspeople also knew that Greta was a strange girl, who prickled with lightning when she was angry and hummed in time with the bees in the field. But they didn’t know her as she was that night, wrapped in red linen and tapping her clean, fresh shoes on the floor. Greta wanted something, wanted it deeply, and she knew that she would never find it by standing on the edge of a cloud of dancers. Outside.

“With the townspeople frozen, she could walk among them. She was careful not to disturb the statues, not to knock against them and upset their precarious balance, send a young girl or boy crashing to the floor. But she got as close as she could without touching. Peered into their faces: the oh s of surprise and the tongues stuck out just a bit, with exertion.

“She wanted something, but she wasn’t sure quite what it was. So she looked everywhere. At the arch of a foot rising out of a shoe, at the symmetry between the fingers on twin hands. None of the girls or boys in the room seemed quite right though. They didn’t have it — this thing that Greta desired.”

Ada paused and rolled her shoulders. She worked all day bent over, mending clothing, so I often saw her stretching out to the fullest capacity of her spine — vertebrae clicking unlocked, bones popping away from their sockets. Normally I liked to imitate her, pulling on my joints until the tendons tugged back. But during a Greta story? I had no patience for it.

“So?” I said.

“So.” Baba Ada gave one last stretch. “She was angry. Frustrated. Yes? It’s difficult, not getting what you want to get. Just as she was becoming really furious though, something caught her eye on the other side of the room. An ice man, taller than the other dancers, slightly stooped. As if he didn’t want to be seen.”

“By Greta?”

“No. By anyone else. His hair was shaggy, hanging down against his neck, and he looked somewhat disheveled. A little bit wild. But his eyes were warm even through the ice. Greta stood right next to him and held her breath so he wouldn’t fog up. The ice man had strong hands and an untucked shirt.

“Greta looked him up and down and then pressed her thumb to his fat bottom lip. Her warm thumb left a print, and the skin stuck slightly as she pulled it away. And then. Can you guess?”

I gave a little scream.

“Just tell me.”

“All right, okay. As soon as Greta stepped back, the room burst back into its noisiness and its scuffling. The ice man — well, the man — fell to tapping his toes, and he held a hand up to his mouth. The lip Greta touched had a new dark bruise, and do you know what? It was bruised for the rest of his life. Saul knew he was to become her husband, and he held out his hand and invited Greta to dance.”

I pulled the sheet taut over my fist and sucked on the knuckle of my thumb through the fabric, imagining my fingers clasped by someone I loved. In my head Greta appeared, standing in front of Saul while the rest of the now-unfrozen girls in the room shook their heads, like colts, to clear them. Her red dress was a blot of blood against the inky blue cotton and twill around her. Saul took Greta in his arms, and the skirts twisted and swayed together, their colors melding, so that from above you might track their movements by the purple streak tailing behind Greta through the crowd.

“What are you thinking about?” Ada asked me. She always seemed to ask after my thoughts when she already knew what they were, seeking confirmation. Or seeking to correct. I sunk my teeth into the sheet, to slice through it like scissors, but my incisors just rubbed blunt and dry against the threads.

“Did they live happily ever after?”

“Hmm.” Baba Ada frowned and tucked the covers around me until I was as immobile as a mummy. “Did you think we were at the end of the story? Do you think that’s where it ought to finish?”

“Oh.” I lay still. “I guess not?”

“Good,” Ada said. “Because the most important thing is still to come. Even with the dancers melted and dried off, even with the flames of their dancing banked, the fabryka still sizzled. And Greta felt it all over her body. She was awake in a new way, her ears tingling and her spine straight, in the arms of her marked man.

“She looked at Saul’s face, which was stern and serious, heavy with concentration. As though he’d never danced before but had been studying the art of it all his life, from afar. His fingertips put just a bit of pressure on her back, telling her which way to turn, which way to move. Greta let him lead her around and around the floor. She closed her eyes.

“And she felt the music. The fiddle yawning. The starchiness of the clarinet. And the piano running lightly, very lightly, over its notes, as a brook runs over pebbles.

“Her heart pounded. Like a knock at the door. Klapać, klapać, klapać .”

Ada ran her fingernails down my arm. I shivered.

“Do you know what it feels like,” my baba asked me, “to be someone’s darling?”

She knew the answer: yes and no. I was her darling, but that wasn’t what she meant.

“It’s like sinking into a bed. Sinking into a bath. Knowing there is no better place for you on earth. Greta and Saul’s feet made light scuffs on the floor, which were swept away by the scuffs of the other dancers. The band played on, and the dancers twirled.