Chapter Thirty-One
1905
The Slave Girl’s Dream
In Waterloo, I did something foolish. It was a silly impulse, and I knew it would make no difference, but I had left logic behind. The railcar that had once been a lovely refuge was now a prison. Sometimes he locked himself in there with me and sometimes I was alone, but either way, I was thoroughly a prisoner, and I grew to hate the ornate ceiling and the framed art and the rich bedclothes and the empty spaces on the brocade walls where the mirrors used to hang. I hated him and I hated myself. There was only one time each day when I was free in both my body and mind. It was the golden time, the beautiful time, as the late afternoon shaded into evening, when he had to let me out to go onstage.
Onstage, he couldn’t stop me. He’d never interfere with the show. He escorted me all the way there with his hand on my elbow, his steps in perfect concert with mine. During the performance he would stand in the wings, watching, and follow my every move. The moment I was offstage I was in his grip again, literally. But for a precious hour on each stage in each theater in front of each audience, I was still myself, still in control.
Ever since the Iroquois, I’d made a point of finding out what each theater’s precautions were in case of fire. In Waterloo, there were buckets of water in front of the footlights, which was a standard precaution, but there was also an ax hanging on the back wall of the stage, which was not. Nearly every theater had fire axes on the premises to break doors and windows during a fire, to let either people or smoke escape. They were just usually offstage. This one was not, and the moment I saw it, I knew what I would do.
The evening unfolded in the usual pattern, at first. Majestic, I strode onstage in an exquisite gown to a surge of welcoming applause. I entranced the audience with coins that multiplied and disappeared. By turns the stage was a riot of colorful scarves, then a still and silent temple, then a blaze of light and motion. I did not even venture a glance into the wings, but looked out instead over a sea of rapt spectators, their eyes shining. I announced the fire dancers, the Dancing Odalisque, all the other illusions. I performed. We performed.
But this night, not everything was exactly the same as it had been. Just the sight of that nearby fire ax had reawakened me to myself, and I was thinking more clearly than I had in weeks, seeing the act with new eyes. What I saw and felt onstage pleased me. The new assistants were settling into their roles, and although they weren’t yet as expert as their predecessors had been, they were growing in confidence and strength. As an act, we were finding our shared rhythm. And as we crescendoed to the Halved Man, I became more and more eager, every muscle a taut wire.
I wheeled the box out onstage, the deaf boy’s head seemingly connected to another boy’s feet. I made the usual gestures. But instead of reaching for the saw on the table stage left, I turned my back on the audience and walked to the back of the stage, lifting the ax from its tether. I strode downstage again, taking a brief moment to lock eyes with Ray in the wings as I did so—he looked murderous at the improvisation, which pleased and energized me—and then I stood over the box, and instead of gently sawing back and forth through the precut center, I raised the sharp ax blade over my head as high as it could go and willed all my strength into the downstroke.
I swung it down furiously, splintering the wood. It was satisfying. I did it again, and it was more satisfying yet. I considered crouching for a moment to whisper to the boys in the box that no harm would come to them, but there wasn’t time for it. In any case the deaf boy wouldn’t have heard. And I was barely aware of anyone but myself in the moment. I was transported, transformed. I was merely an extension of the ax. We were one, a single instrument of punishment and destruction. We were revenge. I pictured Ray’s face as I smashed and smashed. Every blow was an answer to some wrong he had done me. Every upswing of the ax was an opportunity to bring it down again, hard and swift.
Then I heard the blast of a horn, possibly repeated, certainly loud enough to jar me. It was my cue. That brought me back into my body, onstage, and I realized where and who I was. The middle of the box was nearly split into kindling. But no one knew this wasn’t what was expected. I had to give them the rest of what they’d paid for.
So I finished up as usual, in a near daze—smoke and mirrors, deaf boy through a trapdoor, a sudden reappearance to amaze them all—and I took my bow. The audience thundered its applause. I raised my arms to thank them. They had no idea what they’d done for me. Without Clyde, I could barely go on, and without them, I wouldn’t want to. I wasn’t a mere prisoner—not at that moment, not anymore.
The curtain slid closed with a heavy and final-sounding whoosh. I stood alone on the bare stage, panting. My shoulders were already beginning to cry out from the effort, but there was a smile on my face, frozen there, my cheeks aching. I still gripped the ax.
I didn’t stop smiling when Ray grabbed the ax out of my hands, nor when he marched me to the railcar, hissing at me to go faster, faster, at every step. I didn’t stop smiling when he shoved me through the open door of the railcar and slammed it behind us with a mighty thump. I didn’t stop smiling as he screamed at me, pushed me to the carpet on my back, and held the wooden handle of the ax against my windpipe with two hands, nor when he pressed down so hard no air could get through, bruising my neck deeply. I must have stopped smiling when I lost consciousness, though it tickled me to wonder if maybe I hadn’t, which would have driven him to absolute distraction. When I came to, Ray was gone, and the ax with him. I was alone.
I reached for the brandy as I usually did but stopped myself. It would only deaden the pain for the moment. Drinking would leave the ache on the inside untouched and add a dizzying physical ache to wrap me like a shroud in the morning. And tonight was different. Tonight, I remembered the most important lesson of my life: I had agency.
Tonight I could surely find some better use for these minutes without Ray, however long they lasted, than to drink them away.
I pulled my suitcase out from under the bed. I was torn. Could I try to run away just one more time? Would he be gone long enough for me to get away, free and clear? Seeing and wielding the ax had made a difference. It reminded me that I might be a prisoner but I didn’t have to be a victim. Earlier in the night I had told myself with certainty that I would finally kill him, without knowing how I would do so but utterly sure that one of us would be dead before the next day’s sun came up. If I searched every inch of the railcar again, might I find something that would make the difference? Should I flee, or stay and fight?
Inside the suitcase was a smaller valise, which I recognized as the one my mother had bought me, all those years ago, in hopes of sending me off to ballet school. My life had certainly turned out differently than she’d intended. That little bag had seen me through many years, lean ones and fat ones, but right now it only reminded me of my failings. I kicked it, hard, so it flew a few feet across the railcar and struck the bed, and when it bounced and popped open, something fell out of the lining.
The straight razor that had been both Ray’s and Clyde’s.
Ray had hidden it well, but not well enough. I’d found it. And the moment it was in my hand, I knew what I was ready to do.
I positioned myself next to the door, razor at the ready, to kill him.
My body tense with anger and fear, I waited by that door for what felt like hours.
Darkness fell and I didn’t light the lamp. My eyes had adjusted to the dark by then, and when he came in, there might be a chance that his hadn’t. It would add to the element of surprise. I needed every advantage I could get. My hand still smarted from the broken finger, but I didn’t trust my left hand to bear the weapon any better. I would simply wait, in the dark, until he came, and then I would lunge, and it would all be done at last.
Only he never came.