The Book of Revelation (12 page)

•

Standing in the brilliant white spotlight he couldn’t see them clearly. There seemed to be both men and women present, all of them in formal evening dress. He caught glimpses of their masks, one with eye-holes ringed in sparkling stones, another made entirely of green feathers, and he could also just make out the starched shirt-fronts of the men, white triangles that gleamed softly in the darkness. What struck him most, though, was the smell—a smell that consisted of new spring leaves, exhaust fumes, alcohol and rain, a smell that seemed both exciting and forbidden. They had brought the night air into the room with them; it clung to their clothes, their skin, their hair. . . . Who were they, he wondered, these thirty men and women? Were they part of some secret society, people united by their love of the perverse, which took them, on certain nights, to anonymous houses on the outskirts of the city? And did the women who had organised the entertainment belong to that same underworld, the damage that had once been done to them now finding expression in clandestine rituals, barbarity, a pursuit of the bizarre? He listened to the low buzz of a dozen whispered conversations. Where had they all come from? Who
were
they? There was only one thing he could say for sure. It was the strangest audience that he had ever had.

He had already warmed up before they were ushered into the room, and he was eager to begin, but it took several minutes for the murmuring to die down. A few last coughs, a throat being cleared, one long and oddly pleasurable sigh—and then a crackle in the speakers behind him as the third act of
Swan Lake
began. . . . He had decided to approach the performance as he would approach any performance, with absolute dedication and commitment. If he was going to get through it he would have to lose himself completely in the dancing (perhaps, after all, he knew no other way). His nakedness, which the women had insisted on, would become a fundamental part of what he was doing. Like the chain, it had to be incorporated. He had to treat them both as elements without which the piece simply would not work.

And he thought he succeeded pretty well. From the first moment of his entrance, the music starting quietly, poignantly, the notes ascending in a minor key, he used the chain as a stand-in for Odile. Whenever he was required to dance with her he danced with the chain instead, holding it, lifting it, parading it about. This had worked the day before, in rehearsal, and it worked even better now, especially in the slow waltz that formed part of the
pas de deux
. He liked the jingling of the chain across the floor. It sounded like somebody fingering loose change, like impatience, in other words, or nervousness, and it seemed to comment directly on the music, almost in the way percussion does, adding to the atmosphere of unease. Not until the Prince’s solo, which is long and technically demanding, did things become tricky. He had trimmed many of the jumps, but, even so, he had to take care that he did not trip and hurt himself. He had covered himself by injecting humour into the choreography. Once, for instance, when he should have been launching himself into a
grand temps levé,
a difficult jump at the best of times, the chain appeared to intervene, preventing him from even attempting it. If the solo forfeited some of its athleticism, it gained in both astringency, he felt, and pathos. The chain became a symbol of the Prince’s wayward sexuality: it was clear for everyone to see that, in pursuing Odile, he was being led by his most basic desires. At the same time, in hampering the Prince’s movements, the chain was trying to warn him, to enlighten him.
Open your eyes. This isn’t love.
When he had finished the solo he stood still, his chest heaving. He could feel his lack of fitness now, and he wondered if anyone had noticed. The music was continuing, though. He looked on as a phantom Odile danced her own solo—a raunchy, triumphant series of steps that celebrated the fact that she had succeeded in seducing him.
It worked. I’ve got him. He’s mine
. He turned his head this way and that, as if he was actually following her progress across the stage, as though he was admiring her, then he threw himself into the coda, which was like an array of circus tricks, pausing once again to watch Odile execute one of the most famous sequences in ballet—the thirty-two
fouettés
in a row. He danced right up to the moment when the Prince realises that he has been deceived, and that everything is over. Instead of running off stage, though, as Nureyev had done, he slowly pirouetted towards the back wall, allowing the chain to wind itself around him, so that, by the time the music built to its crescendo, he was standing by the iron staple at the back of the room, his entire body imprisoned, paralysed. He immersed himself so deeply in his performance that, when the act finally came to an end and he looked up, he expected to see the gilt balconies and red plush seating of a theatre, he expected to hear applause rush towards him out of the darkness like a wave, but there was only a bare room, with thirty people clapping, so he slowly freed himself and stood there, with the chain in his right hand, then he bowed once, ironically, and, turning his back on them, walked out of the spotlight, into the shadows. . . .

•

It was late. The sound system and the spotlights had been dismantled; the chairs had been stacked, and then removed. The room looked as it had always looked, brutal and unadorned, though he felt he could still smell the night air, that distillation of spring leaves and recent rain. For the last hour, Gertrude had been giving him a massage—some kind of reward for his efforts, he supposed—and, to his surprise, she was at least as good as Hendrik, the masseur who worked for the dance company. Her fingers were more powerful than they appeared to be, reaching down into his muscles, easing tension and spreading a feeling of luxurious well-being. He had almost drifted off to sleep when he heard her murmur something:

“You will not be here tomorrow.”

He did not know what to make of Gertrude’s announcement, coming as it did from somewhere far away, beyond the soothing mists and perfumes that enveloped him. Were they going to kill him? That could happen, couldn’t it, in situations such as these? His mind grappled sluggishly with the idea. . . . No, surely he must have misheard her. Or perhaps she was having trouble with her English, and what she was trying to say had come out wrong.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “What was that?”

“You will not be here tomorrow. You will be free.”

He looked round, wide awake now, his heart beating in his throat. “This is a joke. . . .”

“No,” she said in that humourless way she sometimes had, “this is not a joke.” She picked up a towel, began to wipe her hands.

“Why?” he said. “Why now?”

She paused for a moment, seeming to stare into space. “It was a difficult decision, but it was necessary.”

“I don’t understand.”

She gathered up the massage oil and the towel, rose to her feet and started for the door. He called out after her, but she ignored him, pausing only to switch off the lights. It was the most peculiar feeling of frustration suddenly. He felt it was impossible, no,
inconceivable,
that he should simply be released, with no questions asked and none answered. He felt that the whole thing should be explained to him. They weren’t going to do that. They weren’t going to say another word.

It was necessary.

He lay back in the darkness, thinking. What if the women had decided that it would be dangerous to hold him for any longer? What if they felt they would be risking exposure? After all, they had already given a banquet, with several guests, and then there had been his performance in front of an invited audience. . . . How many people had seen him so far? Thirty? Forty? Surely it was only a matter of time before the secret got out. In the end, only two courses of action lay open to the women: either they had to dispose of him, or they had to let him go. They appeared to have chosen the less drastic option, which was a relief, of course, but still—

You will be free.

It was unthinkable, after all this time. It was absurd.

It was almost frightening.

•

All that night he stayed awake, pacing at the end of his chain, unable to come to terms with what he had been told. Perhaps he could not afford to. The risk of disappointment was too great. But it had created a kind of havoc in his head, a chaos of possibilities. . . . Most likely it was some exquisite new torture the women had devised for him, a shift from the physical to the psychological. Yes, he could imagine that. And yet she had announced it with such evident regret. . . . He paced. He sat with his back against the wall. He paced again. At last he saw dawn appear in the skylight, a subtle easing of the darkness, a breath of pink across the glass. . . .

Only moments later, it seemed, a woman brought him coffee and a plate of fruit. One glimpse of her hands, strong yet elegant, with nails that were filed square across the top, told him that it was Astrid. Identity no longer interested him, though. He was looking for a variation in the routine, a change of mood, some hint or sign that he was about to be released. He noticed nothing.

Not long after breakfast the door was thrown open, and a cloaked and hooded woman burst into the room. The floorboards bounced as she ran clumsily towards him. She came to a standstill some distance away, as if she had forgotten something and was thinking of turning back. Though he could not see her legs he could imagine them—the feet pointing inwards, the knees touching: Maude.

“I saw the performance,” she said in a quiet, breathless voice.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Oh yes. Yes. Very much—”

“Are you all right?” He tried to look into her eyes. “Did they punish you?”

Her head turned in the direction of the door. “I must go.”

Alone again, he lay there on the mat. Maude didn’t seem to know that he was being freed, but that didn’t prove anything. They probably wouldn’t have told her. Uncertainty had lodged in him like an ache. His eyes stung from lack of sleep.

Then, sometime in the middle of the day, while he was dozing, the door opened again and all three women appeared. He sat up, rubbed his eyes. The sky had darkened since breakfast, and the light in the room was murky.

Gertrude came towards him, holding the clothes he had been wearing on the day of his abduction. Everything had been washed and folded. Everything was clean. Working with Astrid, Gertrude chained his hands behind his back, then helped him to his feet. Maude stood off to the left, he noticed, with her head turned to one side. From beneath her cloak Gertrude produced a silver key, which she used to unlock the ring that they had fitted through his penis. When she had removed the ring she handed it to Astrid, who placed it in a small black box she had brought into the room with her. He looked down at the jagged hole in his foreskin, wondering if it would ever heal.

Gertrude reached for his clothes, pulling on his jockstrap, his track-suit trousers and his socks. She slipped his shoes on to his feet and tied the laces. The wistful quality that she had seemed to have the night before had gone. She was brisk, unsentimental, and he did not attempt to resist her; he allowed her to dress him, as if he were a child. It was beginning to sink in now, the knowledge that they were about to let him go, and yet a feeling of suspense hung in the room, like mist, making it difficult to see too far ahead; he didn’t want to say anything in case he broke the spell.

While Gertrude was buttoning his shirt, he suddenly realised that his hands were free. He could have reached out and taken her by the throat. He could have strangled her. She seemed to guess what he was thinking because she looked up quickly. She was standing so close to him that he could see a burst vein in the white part of her left eye. He looked away from her. The moment passed.

Once she had finished dressing him she offered him a choice. If he was prepared to co-operate, they could simply slip a hood over his head. Otherwise, they would have to inject him with anaesthetic, as before. He told her he would rather wear the hood.

Astrid stepped forwards.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You don’t have to warn me.”

As Astrid reached up with the hood, he had his last glimpse of the women, an image that seemed to print itself on to his mind, as motionless, as fixed in time, as any photograph. Gertrude had positioned herself at Astrid’s shoulder, with one hand folded over the other and held just below her breasts. Slightly to the left of Gertrude, and standing deeper in the room, was Maude, her head still angled away from him, as if she could not bear to look. Then just the bare floorboards, with their dust-balls and their splinters, stretching off into the thick grey light. . . .

•

They led him down the two steep flights of stairs. Instead of turning right at the bottom and doubling back towards the garden, they moved straight ahead, taking a right turn, then a left turn, until at last they walked, not into the open air, as he had been expecting, but into a large indoor space. The temperature dropped, and he could smell damp earth and paraffin. He might be in a garage, he thought—or some kind of warehouse, maybe. Though there was movement all around him, the rustle of the women’s clothes, nobody spoke. A key scraped in a lock. Then, just as he was being bundled into the van—he could tell it was a van because of the double-doors at the back and the corrugated metal floor inside—he heard the strangest sound, a sound that was somewhere between keening and wailing. Only later did he identify the source of it, and by that time they were driving. It was Maude, of course. It could only have been Maude. Perhaps she had learned that he was being freed. Or else they had told her that she couldn’t come with them. Once again, she had been mistreated, overlooked.

It was hard to sit with his wrists shackled behind his back. When the van pulled away, he almost toppled sideways, and one of the women had to reach out and steady him. He wondered if she had a loaded syringe with her, just in case. For the first ten minutes there were constant twists and turns. There were potholes too, which made him think that the road was being repaired. Either that, or it simply had no surface yet. Then only smoothness for a long time, smoothness and the roar of traffic. A motorway, presumably. Once or twice the woman sitting next to him shouted to the woman who was driving. She spoke so fast, though, and the engine was making so much noise, that he didn’t understand a word.