The Secret Is
I stood in the doorway to my living room and stared. The sofa and chairs were in the proper places, but their plaid upholstery had been replaced with bleached white. The burgundy, emerald, and cobalt of my oriental rug had faded to chalk. Lithographs were reduced to faint lines and subdued shadows; photographs could be seen only in memory.
In the center of the room stood an unfamiliar circular settee with a tall, cylindrical back. I'd seen similar sofas in period movies set in Victorian hotels. Those were always upholstered with green velvet or red brocade, but the one in my living room was covered with white leather. In the films, ladies with corseted waists and bustled skirts perched on the settee, sipping tea and waiting for men they should not love. In my living room, a wiry man with an impishly angular face adorned the platform that capped the sofa's drum-shaped back. Dressed in black, he stood with feet splayed, legs straight, back erect. With a flourish he lifted his right hand over his head and bowed grandly.
A long line of people with ashen garb and anemic faces appeared. The queue coiled and curled around my living room, stretching the walls until walls and people faded into the dull tarnish of the distant horizon.
I joined the line of pallid people meekly shuffling forward. Those around me were dressed in various styles, new and old, chic and vintage, tailored and shapeless. In their garments I sensed, rather than saw, the shadow of dyes that lingered in unseen spaces between warp and weft. Everyone was silent. All waited to consult the little man in black.
He was no one I knew, no one I had seen before. I would have remembered his wedge-shaped face, flaring cheekbones, and jutting chin. His generous mouth mocked us, but not unkindly, and his dark eyes glinted. I wondered if he, like me, sensed that this was merely a dream.
The man saw me studying him and jumped from his perch. He wandered around my living room, watching me watching him. He chose a book at random and flipped it open. Even from my distant vantage I could see that the illustrations had grayed; the words were blurred. He replaced the book and picked up a milk-white bowl. Once it had been a Hopi pot, smooth brown painted with angular black. He ran an admiring finger along its delicate lip. Then, slowly, deliberately, he opened his hand and dropped the bowl. It did not hit the carpeted floor. It did not break. It disappeared.
The man returned to the settee and again sat on its top with his feet resting on the seat cushions. The line shuffled forward. Soon it would be my turn to consult the smiling man in black. I did not know what was expected and had no idea what to say. As each person spoke into the man's ear, I watched, hoping for a clue as to what was proper and necessary. The ritual looked simple.
Each petitioner whispered a few words into the little man's ear. Smile puckish, eyes eager, the man stroked his pointy chin as if pondering matters of weight and significance. His feet moved shadowlessly over the pale cushions, and he danced. Sometimes he did a soft-shoe, at other times a fast tap, and once an en pointe. Twice he lifted his thin legs to his narrow chest and whirled around like a kid on a soda fountain stool. At last, having thought and danced, the man would lean down and whisper a few words into the supplicant's ear.
In response some nodded sagely; others pressed palm against palm and bowed. Still others made the sign of the cross; a few flashed the two-fingered V of peace, or victory. Then each disappeared as simply and as totally as my Hopi pot. Not even the dust motes trapped in the watery sunlight were disturbed by their passing.
The blond man in line before me shifted, and I saw his profile, sallow and stern, puffy-eyed yet proud. I smiled and murmured, "What are you going to ask?"
The man turned very slowly and stared as if I were a fly polluting his designer water. "You have to do the work yourself," he hissed.
The line inched forward. Only three people remained between the little man and me. I glanced back and saw two New Age hippies. She was dressed in bleached gauze; he, in denim faded by too much sun and too many washings. Beads, bangles, and amulets hung from their necks, wrists, and ankles. All were of eggshell hues and looked no more substantial than faint shadows against their drab garments.
I twitched a smile. "What are you going to ask?"
"Like . . . it's cosmic." The man frowned, searching for words. "Earth and sky, wind and fire. You know, yin yang."
"And I want to know what to name the baby," the woman confided.
I looked down and saw that her belly was heavy with pregnancy.
The line moved, and I faced the smiling man. He cocked a quizzical brow at me, threw back his head and laughed. It was the first sound louder than a hushed whisper that I had heard in hours, perhaps days, months. Years.
I surprised myself and laughed too. Silently at first, then a gurgling chuckle followed by an explosion of delight that ricocheted from throat to heart, from dim walls to scorched horizon. Everyone stared, wordlessly reprimanding me for breaking rules I'd never known. I kept on laughing, and the little man danced a merry jig. At last I sighed and wiped the tears from my eyes. I waited to disappear as the others had, but I remained at the head of the line.
Was I still expected to ask a question?
The man in black bent towards me, and I leaned my ear to his lips.
"The secret," he said, "is color."
Copyright 2006 by Kay Jordan
