SONS OF THE FATHERS

Chapter 7:  Shall We Dance?

As the Ode to Joy filled the room,  he began turning with her in a slow circle, then faster, his cape spinning outwards.  Tipping his head way back, his cheeks wet with tears, he laughed. "I'm home!" he shouted happily.  Then he set her on her feet, taking the edges of his cape and pulling them closely about her, resting his chin atop her head.  Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes, sighing, "I'm home."
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"She's gonna get what she wants.  I just know it!" Ando sighed, walking up the grassy hill to the large white tent.  

 

"Get what she wants? What do you mean?" Susan asked.  

 

"And you just know WE'LL have to do it, too!" Ando grumped.  

 

"Do WHAT?" Susan practically shouted.  

 

"Whatever," Ando replied.  

 

Susan glared at her.  "Could you be more specific?"  

 

"In the tent... whatever."

 

Susan narrowed her eyes at the former Welshwoman.  

 

"Oh, don't narrow your eyes at me!" Ando said, shaking her head. "You'll have to do it as well."  

 

"Do WHAT!" Susan did shout.  "You'll see," Ando said mysteriously. "We'll ALL see."  

 

Susan grabbed Ando by a hair ribbon.  "You can't just walk off and leave me with that."  

 

Ando pursed her lips, looking as wise as it is possible for her to look. "You know she'll get whatever she wants...you know that as well as I do."

 

"What ARE you talking about?"  

 

"When you see the sorts of dances we'll be forced to dance this evening, you'll understand exactly what I'm talking about."  Ando looked suspiciously toward the tree tops then behind some hedges. "It's that stwange woman at the keyboard.  She'll give her whatever she wants."

 

"Wh...what...does she...want?" Susan stuttered, starting to get a bit worried herself now.

"We shall know soon enough," Bud rumbled, passing by on his way to the tent.  

 

"Stop SAYING that!" Wanda gasped, hoping Joimus didn't want heads floating in her punchbowl.  

 

Berti nodded truly wisely.  "You know...her.  You know she wants... different...strange...things.  Things that nobody else ever thought of wanting."  

 

Susan pressed her lips together.  She knew, alas, that Berti was right. Turning her head to look up at the tent, she wondered aloud, "Is it too late to hop a train for Hong Kong?"  Sue the Vile just rolled her eyes.  

The tent was actually 3 enormous tents joined together, with one area set up for dining, another for an orchestra, and another, central one, covering a large, wooden dance floor.  Tiny golden lights inside huge swaths and drapes and garlands of pale yellow gossamer were everywhere.  The tablecloths were made of rust-colored material with centerpieces carrying on the wheat/poppy/daisy theme.  As the sun began to set, the interiors took on a soft, warm glow and the tiny golden lights looked very much like thousands upon thousands of fireflies had come to share the evening.  The yearning strains of "Song of India" floated out across the gardens, as though summoning the wedding party to come into the tents where lights and warmth and fellowship awaited.  

Steve and Laura had paused along a particular stretch of path.  "It's here where you fell, spraining your ankle," he recalled.  

 

"And you carried me up to the house," she added, the last traces of the sunset highlighting her long hair.  Her gown was a soft peachy rose and the sunset did marvelous things with its shadings.  Steve's photographer's eye was entranced.  He had taken many pictures in the chapel, but now he adjusted his camera settings, wanting to capture the flow of color on her dress, her hair, her face.  

 

"Do you remember," he said, "during the ceremony when Terry quoted from T. S. Eliot and the lines said something about arriving where we started and knowing the place for the first time?"

 

"Yes, I do remember, Steve."  

 

"I feel that...now...here."  He let his camera hang from its strap and stepped toward her in the gathering darkness.  His voice dropped to a whisper, "Then...I would not have done...this...."  He kissed her, softly, gently, then stepped back, smiling at her.  "But I wanted to...even then."

Joimus had actually asked Marti to help with the menu for the dinner, knowing that inasmuch as the Queen had not only bathed the unconscious General over and over and OVER in Wolf's Bane, she had also FED him quite a bit...so she left the almond honey cakes and such up to Marti's fine hand, only requesting there not be any melted goose fat or mooshed pimentos...or whatever it was she used for more nefarious and painful purposes.  

 

The other characters were just gonna have to make do without some of their favorites as Marti was not quite up for soused ox face, though she did squirrel away several Oreos for her Jeff.  In addition, there were large platters of snow crab legs, boiled shrimp,  NO chicken (Joimus having muttered something about eating too much chicken at waaay too many receptions),  but just about anything else you could think of, including, of course, Jiff low-fat peanut butter.  

Maximus lifted his glass.  "Friends, welcome to this feast of body and heart. I lift a toast to my bride who in radiance shall light my life.  With this glass I pledge by the purity of the grape that my love shall be as true as this vintage I ask you all to share with me.  In front of us is spread the plenty of larder and pantry, of cellar and granary."  He looked at Joimus.  "My Love, come fill cup and bowl for our life together shall always be a feast."  He poured sparkling cider into her glass, Dess being too young to drink and all.  

Ando kept a wary eye on Joimus as they ate.  She could tell by the strange glint that shown from time to time in her blue orbs that the meal was not what was really on the Pittsburgher's mind, not even the Jiff low-fat peanut butter part.  As unusual as it may seem to have these words connected to the personage of the former Welshwoman...she was...right.  Perhaps Himself and Maximus had made... arrangements.. for the ceremony, but Joimus herveryself had communicated various and sundry of her...different...thought patterns to the stwange woman at the keyboard, who had smiled and said, "But...of course!"  

Briefly distracted by a chocolate-covered locust that didn't seem to be quite dead, Ando tuned back into Joimus' words just as the Pittsburgher finished saying, "And, so, as you can see, it's not ALL that complicated."  

 

Foolishly, Ando asked Sue the Vile, "What's not all that complicated?"

 

Sue, realizing that the woman who passed herself off as her compatriot when she was truly not English-born, had not been paying attention,  smirked broadly, enjoying herself most vilely as she said, "Why, the steps to one of the dances."

Ando paled.  "Steps? There are steps I might not...know?"

 

Sue smirked more broadly.  "If you know them, I'll give you all my Cort posters."  

 

Ando felt weak in the knees.  She gulped painfully 5 or 6 times.  Sue would never make such a wager...ever...if there were the slightest chance she might lose.  

 

"Wh...what st..steps?" Ando whispered, her voice trickling down her chin, breaking into tiny parts of syllables that plopped onto her shoes... her dancing shoes.  

 

"Why," Sue replied brightly, "the ones to the five different figures of the waltz-quadrille-polka."  

 

"W..wa...is that a dance?  It sounds like three dances."  

 

"She said it was a single dance sometime back somewhere in the 1800's...a variation of the quadrille itself. "  

 Ando gulped.  "A...regular...quadrille wouldn't have been complicated enough?"  Suddenly her eyes widened widely as only Welsh women can eye-widen.  "Oh, Lordy!" she sighed.  "THIS is what she wanted??"

 

Sue chuckled, "Worse than you even expected, eh?"  

 

Ando sagged.  "What do we do next?"

This was answered by Maximus' coming up to the already-standing Joimus.  He took her right hand in his right hand, but turned his palm up so that the back of her hand was on top. Clicking his heels together, he bowed over her hand, then coming close to it with his lips, said, "I kiss your hand, gracious lady."  

 

"Oh, goody!" Ute exclaimed.  "The Handkuss!"

 

"The Handkuss?" Jeffrey repeated.  

 

"Vienna," Ute explained.  "We're in Vienna tonight."

 

"Ah," he ahhed, taking her hand, clicking his heels and saying, "Küss' die Hand, gnädige Frau!"

And what a scene it was that followed.  Never in the history of characterdom had there been so much heel clicking and almost hand kissing.  The Captain not only did it perfectly, but looked quite comfortable in the doing of it, being well aware that if he pivoted first on the balls of his feet to bring his heels further apart, it would produce a louder, military click.  

 

Bud, with his bull-in-a-china-shop ways, was a bit more awkward, but smiled broadly, seeming to enjoy the attempt.  Berti certainly seemed to enjoy his attempt.  Ando stood scowling a bit until Hando, who one must admit did move with the grace of a large predatory cat, stopped in front of her, taking her hand in his. Looking into her eyes with his seagreens that had been known more than once to completely melt large candles without the addition of fire, he accepted her surrender to the coming dance.  

Maximus, his right hand about shoulder height, palm up with Joimus' left hand, palm down in his, walked across the center of the dance floor.  

 

"They didn't do that in Rome," Marti whispered.  "How the heck does he know how to DO that?"  She should have known, of course, that the woman at the keyboard would have seen to it that he knew.

His cape flowed delightfully as he moved and Joimus held out her skirt with her right hand. The announcer said, "Tonight we begin with a polonaise to get you warmed up and into the spirit of things."  

 

Ando gulped.  She didn't polonaise all that often in North London but one more of those looks from Hando's eyes and she stopped worrying about it.  

 

All the couples lined up behind Maximus and Joimus, their hands held in those same positions. Just before she gathered a bit of her skirt into her hand, Rose pressed her right palm over her heart, feeling how it fluttered in excitement.  Aubrey had produced a pair of white gloves for himself and as she turned her head to her left, looking at him, her hand resting lightly atop his, his presence did, indeed, fill the cup of her livingness to its brim.

The polonaise was a march in 3/4 time with both partners beginning on their right foot. When Maximus and Joimus reached the orchestra, they turned to the left.  Jack and Rose, immediately behind them, turned right.  Alternating like this the couples moved around the perimeter of the dance floor.  Everyone seemed to be getting used to moving along in this strange, but easy-to-do manner.  When they met at the other end, Maximus and Joimus formed an arch with their joined hands held high. Jack and Rose went under the arch, then also made an arch with their arms.  Himself and Phyllis did the same.  

 

"Why, this is almost like square dancing," Nash remarked, surprised, to Franki.  

 

"They have the same roots," she said as they, too, added to the lengthening archway.  

 

When the arch was complete, Maximus and Joimus walked under the whole thing, then began a new figure with Jack and Rose beside them, going around the room four abreast.  Without stopping, the music flowed into the Radetsky March, a much faster pace than before, and an energetic sashay step (sidestep-close slide) was introduced into the quickly-moving circle.  A few feet got tangled and everybody was smiling and laughing and soon out of breath.

There was a break for refreshments, then it was back to the dance floor for the threatened waltz-quadrille-polka, which, after the fast polonaise, didn't seem so daunting anymore, though Sue did whisper under her breath to Ando about two counts to each bar and one step to each count and each movement requiring eight counts, i.e. four bars.  

 

"Did you mention a bar?" Ando gasped.  

 

"Later," Sue chortled.  

 

All the couples arranged themselves around the dance floor in grouplings of four couples, facing each other in squares.  

 

"See, it IS a square dance!" Nash beamed.  

 

"QUADrille, John," Franki grinned, the meaning of the word smacking the mathematician between the eyes.  

 

"Of course," he blushed.  

 

The difference between the waltz-quadrille-polka and a more, um, regular quadrille is that as you progress through the five figures of it, you add more and more waltzing steps to it until you finally come to the fifth figure which ends in a pure polka, which was rather of a device all along to lead into a polka, it, after the waltz, being Joimus' favorite dance.  She had many fond polka memories from her days as a little girl whirling around with her grandfather.  Could it be that the woman just never got enough of a certain swinging rust-colored cape?  Probably.

A good polka, well-polkaed, leaves one rather out of breath, so there was another break for refreshment.  It is also impossible to be unhappy whilst polkaing, so even Ando was in a good mood, especially upon spotting the actual bar.  

If one has read Toronto Tribulations, one will know that it had to happen...of COURSE it had to happen as part of this event.  Alone, just the two of them, Maximus' right palm curved about her waist, the bridal couple moved into The Emperor Waltz.  There would be no cellular essence sucking tonight.  Sid was not here. There was no endless ceiling of chandeliers reflecting on marbled floors, nor a vast field of wheat, its stalks bending under their invisible passing.  But Joimus tipped her head back a little as the General swirled her and all the firefly lights seemed to move with them, leaving trails of golden streaks that filled the room. She felt his breath, warm and sweet on her cheek,  now and then the soft brush of his fur drape.  

 

"Does it have to end?" she murmured, looking into his face.  

 

"Wherever we are," he whispered in her ear, "whatever we may be doing, inside ourselves I shall always be holding you like this, moving with you like this...the music will always be playing...always."  

"One more waltz," the announcer said, as "The Sleeping Beauty" began.  Aubrey led Rose onto the floor.  As he positioned his hand at her waist, he half-sang,  "I know you...I danced with you once upon a dream...."  

 

Then they were turning to the music, the golden lights reflecting off his epaulets and buttons...his hair. She felt as though she were in the shelter of some great vessel and she let herself be guided entirely by him, he who imparted to her the direction of the dance, who conducted her to this or that part of the ballroom.  She sighed, feeling utterly...utterly ...female.  

Watching them, other couples stepped here and there out onto the dance floor, the mood and the music far too romantic to resist.  Despite his combat boots, Terry was light on his feet tonight.  Perhaps it was the unbluntitudiness of his equipment that gave him a particular lift?

 

Alex, his new grey suit immaculate, swept his Countess around the floor, her silver gown (carefully chosen to complement his suit), flowing behind her in graceful curves.  Wanda was in blue, setting off her red hair, matching Lachlan's Air Force uniform.  Several of the men who had worn tuxes briefly in their films, wore them tonight.  Franki thought Nash splendid and Eryn, the many hand-sewn beads on her gown sparkling in the lights, was obviously enraptured by Colin in a tux.  Even the younger characters were unable to ignore the pull of the music and soon Andy and Anna, Johnny and Mary, joined the others. When Jeff saw how comfortable Himself looked even though dressed in jeans, he repeated the Hand Kuss with Marti, who found him so adorable it was her delight to step out onto the floor on his arm.  Egan, East, and Biebe, inspired, followed with their ladies.

Joimus, growing a little tired, sat to one side, watching, as Maximus stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders.  "Aren't they beautiful," she sighed happily as one after another, the couples swept past.  

 

"Truly...they are," he agreed, noting an expression on Aubrey's face he had not seen before.  So often the General had been with others in situations of grave peril, facing an enemy army or the flashing spears of a charioted foe.  To stand there, quietly, at peace, his eyes filled with the sight of his cast mates so untroubled, so immersed into the pleasure of the moment, of being one with the other, and he was heartened profoundly...Sid was far from his thoughts.  

As so often happens when its mother has been moving rapidly, lulling it, then sits, all outward and inward motion ceasing thereby, a tiny life begins to move. So it was now and, very low, Joimus felt little butterfly kicks.  Blinking back tears, she lifted Maximus' right hand off her shoulder, pulling him gently around beside her.

He squatted near her chair, not knowing what she wanted, but instantly seeing the tears in her eyes.  Pressing his large palm to her stomach, she murmured, "Wait."

About 30 seconds later, the small flutterings came again.  He raised his eyes to hers in wonder."Dess?"  

 

She smiled, nodding, leaning close to him, resting her forehead against his. "Dess," she said.