Broken Mirror

The Deceit

It is close to nine-thirty when the cab drops me off at an irregularly-shaped suburban DC square. The façade of the club is a friendly Mexican sand-yellow. The name La Fantasia stands out in bright red cursive above a large, heavy, wooden gate with metal incrustations. Two tuxedoed bouncers move to the side to let me in, eyeing my rather clashing clothes with disapproval.

Thick aroma of sweating bodies and a potpourri of intermingled perfume scents hit me as I walk in. The large outdoor courtyard is packed with elegantly-dressed guests. Colorful lights hang on crisscrossing wires. A four-man band dressed up in prohibition-era outfits is playing their hearts out, passionately swinging their instruments. The wooden dance floor in the middle of the yard is teeming with dancing couples.

Marion has always been the first person I see when I walk into a crowded room with her in it. The size of the room or the number of people are irrelevant. If she is there, my eyes train onto her as if there is no one else in that room. Whatever capacity of my brain makes such immediate detection possible might be of great interest to creators of face recognition technology – if they could ever model the irrational visual cortex of someone in love.

I breathe a sigh of relief the moment I walk in. She is there, and she is alive. She is in the middle of the busy dance floor, dressed in a long, trim, light blue chiffon dress. She is dancing with a tall gentleman with a neatly-trimmed goatee, wearing pleated light brown pants and suspenders over a dark brown vest.

It takes me a little longer to find Paul. He has done a good job to stay both visible, and at the same time not too obvious. Finally, I spot him. He is sitting at a table, as instructed, with a glass of Scotch in his hand, staring abstractedly at the dance floor.

I get myself a glass of Scotch too, and I weave way through the crowd towards him. There is no place to sit, but I stand close by, leaning on a fake Roman pillar from which someone had clumsily suspended a piñata. From that vantage point, I see most of the room. It takes me almost a minute to locate the athletic man. He is as far from the band as he can, talking gravely on his cell phone.

The song is over. Marion hugs and kisses the partner she had just danced with. She casts a glance in the direction of the athletic man. He catches her eye and points to his phone. She nods.

She is standing at the edge of the dance floor. Her body is a perfect outline of femininity, exactly as I remember it from four years ago. I expect her to stand attentively and look around, trying to catch the eyes of leaders who want to invite her to dance. This is how a lady opens herself to a cabeceo, a wordless dance invitation done only via eye contact.

For a second, I entertain the thought of walking over and inviting her for a dance. It has been so long since we danced together. I miss her sensual embrace, her elegant, yielding movement, her belonging to the dance and to me. I miss her.

It is not an option. Not tonight. Not if she has to stay alive.

She turns around and after a slight hesitation heads in my direction. My heart skips a beat. I stay silent, concealed behind the piñata. She should not be able to recognize me, even if she looks directly at me. I am in disguise. She does not look at me. She walks past me and stands in front of Paul.

She has no way of suspecting that I would be anywhere else other than sitting at that table. For her, and for the people who are trying to disrupt my mission, there is only one me, the one sitting at a table in La Fantasia with a glass of Scotch in his hand.

She looks at Paul, and Paul looks at her. There is a long minute during which they are just looking at each other. Neither is saying anything. Finally, she shakes her head.