Valli had always lived for the Dance. She expressed her very soul through the sinuous, mystic movements that were as old as the East itself. Like all true artists she was a perfectionist. Her mind, as lithe as her body, was always searching for new material. At last she discovered a temple, old and deserted, hidden by Time and the mysterious, impenetrable jungle. In the temple she saw a series of carvings depicting an ancient sacred dance. It was a dance such as she had never imagined possible. Slowly at first and then with increasing speed she began to copy the movements recorded so faithfully by the timeless stone. A strange feeling possessed her as the rhythm of the ancient dance obsessed her whole being. Dark beings of terrifying supernatural aspect glided from the crumbling walls an joined in the ancient rhythm. Not until it was too late did Valli realise that the Forbidden Dance had resurrected forces of cosmic evil which had been sleeping in the lost temple.
Release date:
December 17, 2015
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
320
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VALLI looked at herself in the mirror and smiled, a soft, feminine smile, at her reflection. She placed the last jewelled clip in position beneath her ear and moved her head a little. Her hair swayed out around her shoulders as she moved. Even a tiny movement of the neck like that was, somehow, excitingly attractive the way that Valli did it. It was no accident. It was the result of years of dedication. Valli didn’t look old enough to have been dedicated to anything for years, but since she had been old enough to walk, dancing had fascinated her. The ancient, timeless rhythms of her people, old as the mystic East itself, had captivated and fascinated her mind. When she danced, it was as though she became another person, as though she could forget the trials and difficulties of everyday life. She became almost unaware of the beautiful, lithe, sensuous body that transported her to this magical, rhythmical realm of the Dance. She lived for it. It was all that she cared for in life. To her, the Dance was just the soul, the mind and the heart. She was married to the Dance. She was the Daughter of the Dance; the Sister of the Dance; the other of the Dance. Her whole being centred around it, and was absorbed in it. For Valli, to Dance was to live, to stand still was to be an animal, a vegetable—worse, a thing of wood or stone.
Death horrified her, not because of its prospect of the end of life, but because it was the end of Movement. She swayed the diaphanous, flared skirt provocatively in the mirror, and smiled at her reflection again.
A bronzed face appeared over the bamboo screen.
“Please, it is two minutes before the show.”
“I’m ready,” answered Valli, softly.
“Thank you, please.” The bronzed face disappeared.
Valli chuckled a little. She smiled at her reflection once more and did a final spin on her graceful toes. She swept out of the dressing room and made her way into the central space on the floor of the club. Two spotlights picked her up in that central space; a breathless hush fell over the diners, and a group of patrons who had been talking noisily at the bar just before she entered.
Valli turned and smiled at everybody, dazzled as she was by the spotlights, and then, as her music began, timeless Eastern music, Valli began to dance. It would be impossible to describe the movements which she made. It would be impossible to set down in cold, black and white print, the effect which her dance had upon the girl herself, and her audience.
Valli danced like a woman possessed. Every fibre of her being, every nerve, every sinew, every drop of blood in her veins, was concentrating on the rhythm. Her mind, her heart, her body and soul, everything, everything, EVERYTHING was the Dance. She was at one with the Dance. The Dance was at one with her. It was a moment of truth, a moment out of time. How long she danced she didn’t know, but finally the music warned her that the magic moments were drawing to an end, and Valli knelt gracefully before her audience and lowered her head in acknowledgment of the tumultuous applause which shook the club from floor to ceiling.
She rose gracefully, bowed, and blew saucy little kisses to corners that she could not see because of the dazzling spotlights, and then, panting and breathless with the effort she had made, she was back in her dressing room, sipping iced water and nibbling daintily at a thin, sugared biscuit. Marda appeared. Marda always appeared exactly when she was wanted. She was a crone, and she walked in a rather ungainly manner. Her fingers were stiffened by the years, and her eyes looked out from wrinkled sockets like the eyes of a friendly old brown toad.
“You danced well tonight,” commented Marda.
“Thank you,” answered Valli.
“But then, you don’t need me to tell you that. It is you who are never satisfied with your own performances.” Marda’s old fingers were helping Valli to remove the jewels and the costume.
The girl dressed in her outdoor sari and smiled at herself again in the mirror.
“Yes, Valli, you’re very beautiful,” said Marda, “but I needn’t tell you that, either. In fact, your eyes can see the beauty of your reflection far better than mine can. You are a better judge of yourself than I am.”
“Perhaps,” replied Valli, thoughtfully.
“Only an honest man can judge a human personality,” went on wise old Marda, “and the only personality an honest man can judge is his own.”
“Are there any honest men?” asked Valli.
“A few—a few,” croaked Marda. “A few honest men, and a few honest women, but the tragedy of the world is that they never meet.”
“Perhaps it is best that they don’t,” said Valli suddenly. “Could it not be that too much honesty would be dangerous?”
“You speak very wisely for a girl so young,” said Marda, “and in other ways you are just a vain and pretty child!”
Valli frowned angrily.
“Don’t call me a child, Marda. I’m nearly twenty.”
Marda laughed.
“Twenty!” she said. “I remember when I was twenty. The sahibs and the memsahibs still ruled India then …”
“What was it like under British rule?” asked Valli.
“Some things were good, some were bad. A lot of the things that were good have gone bad, and things that were bad have become good,” said Marda.
“You speak in riddles,” laughed Valli.
“There was an old British saying. I remember the sahib for whom my father worked used to tell us of it. ‘Loss upon the roundabouts means profit on the swings’.”
“A strange saying.” Valli looked puzzled.
“It means that life evens itself out,” said Marda softly.
“Do you believe so?” asked the girl.
“I do not know,” answered Marda, with a cracked laugh. “I do not think I have lived long enough.”
“How can you bear to be old?” asked Valli, with deep, penetrating wisdom.
“I cannot bear to be old,” said Marda, “but I am old.”
“Is there pleasure left in life for the old?”
“There are memories, there are dreams, there are the sounds from yesterday, the sights from the day before. Sometimes to be alone on those strange, heavy nights before the monsoon, to look, not at oneself, but at the trees and the dew and the ground at your feet, and to smell the air, and to listen to the chattering noises of the creatures of the night, these things capture again the feelings of youth, and then for a few moments, I am not old and dead, I am young again. These are the compensations of age.”
“But do you not fear death?” asked Valli.
“I fear death,” said Marda, “but I try not to think about it.” She looked at Valli searchingly. “I love life yet. I cannot bear to be old, but I love life. Do you know, sometimes I dream strange dreams. I dream that one day a great magician will find the fountain of eternal youth, or that a god will come and offer me my youth again, in return for some favour or some act of worship. Then I try to dream of what will come after death. I say to myself, if it is only a last long sleep, it doesn’t matter, for we shall know nothing of it. Then I think that sleep is only good because we know naught of sleep, save waking again, when the birds sing in the morning. And I think a sleep from which there is no waking is the worst evil in all the world, in the moon, and in the stars. But let us talk of more cheerful things.”
The old woman’s voice altered and she smiled. “I still enjoy food, drink, I still enjoy the music, and my mind dances when your body dances.”
“Do you not wish that you could still dance, Marda?” asked Valli.
“Oh, it is many years since I danced as you danced,” answered the old woman, “but it is good to rest, and the times of rest comes to us all, soon or late.”
Valli wished, somehow, that she had not brought up the subject.
“I’m sorry, Marda,” she said with surprising suddenness.
“Why are you sorry? You have done nothing to hurt me. We only speak the truth. We are two ships that sail across the ocean of life. I have sailed further than you. My boards, my deck, my masts, sails and ropes have been bleached and strained with the length of my voyage. When you have voyaged as far as I, your ship will also show the signs of its journey across the ocean of time.”
“What happens to our ships?” wondered Valli.
“Perhaps there is another shore upon the other side, or else they sink into the bottomless ocean of Time …”
“I don’t want to sink,” said Valli. “I want to sail for ever. I want to sail to the Other Shore.”
“Only the gods know whether there is another shore. They have not disclosed it,” said Marda, as she sighed wearily.
“You were right the first time,” said Valli. “We must change the subject.” She gave a little shudder.
They went out and Valli paid for their evening meal, at a café close to the club where she danced.
As they ate their curry, the old woman talked of her youth and of the dances she had danced. She talked of dances of which Valli had never heard. The thought of new dances fascinated the young girl.
“Tell me, Marda,” she said, “why have you never spoken of these old dances before?”
“I did not think that you would be interested, for they are of Yesterday, and you are of Today!” said her old dresser.
“But I am interested!” exclaimed Valli. “I would love to dance a dance such as no woman has ever danced.”
“There you speak like a true artist,” commented Marda. “I thought such things in my own youth. Did I ever tell you the story of the hidden temple?”
“No,” said Valli. She finished her curry and beckoned to the waiter for two dishes of lychee and syrup. “What hidden temple is it of which you speak, Marda?” went on Valli, as they ate the fruit the waiter had brought them.
“It is said that long ago,” pursued the old woman, “a man saw the gods themselves dancing …”
“The gods?” murmured Valli. “Which gods?”
“Dark and evil gods,” answered Marda. “Jealous, angry gods. Gods of death and of power …”
“What became of the man who saw this forbidden dance?” asked Valli interestedly.
“The gods were so angry that they destroyed him, but they didn’t destroy him before he had told what he had seen.”
“And where did he see the gods dancing?” asked Valli.
“In the forbidden temple hidden in the jungle so that no mortal eye may see it,”. . .
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