Read Online Dancer From the Dance: A Novel by Andrew Holleran - Free Book Online
Authors: Andrew Holleran
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gloves to church and he held her hand walking up the aisle. He collected coral in his bedroom. A variety of varicolored maids came and went, and he attached his heart to them, in the washhouse behind their bungalow as they plaited their hair and he sat reading his books beside the washtubs fragrant with the blue astringency of bleach^ He loved the odor of bleach and the breeze that blew down the hot, empty, baking street and carried the fragrance of the whole island, its thorn trees and cactus; he loved the warm cement, the empty, sunny sky, the maids' laughter. And he gradually over the years forgot those houses that had not only attics, dry and magical, but damp and vivid basements stored with preserves and tools and old toys; he forgot the snows and turning seasons, and became a habitu6 of the Equator, whose soul loves light and the pleasures of the senses.
For there is no more sensual place on earth. On Saturdays he went to the blazing white movie house in whose dark womb he watched Errol Flynn jumping onto burning decks to rescue Olivia de Havilland, and when he came outside into the dazzling sunlight, there were the cocoa palms, the lapis lazuli waters of the film itself. At night the trade winds moaned in the louvers as he lay in bed; a dog barked far away under the huge moon, the almond trees creaked in the breeze; and Malone dreamed the usual dreams of a boy his age—of cowboys, and Superman, and pirates—but with this difference: that outside, under the date palms, by the lagoons, was the setting for those dreams, as real as the shoes lying beside his bed on the floor. When he was twelve he gave up the dream of being a pirate, and replaced it with being a saint. He began coming home after school in the afternoons, and the catechism class that followed it, not to play ball, but to sequester himself in his room, kneeling, to pray to a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and hope Christ would manifest Himself. His family said nothing as he said a Grace over his soup which lasted so long that by the time he lifted the first spoonful of cold liquid to his lips, they were eating dessert.
His beautiful mother went to parties at night in perfume and necklaces; took Malone to mass in the village and made him light candles for his aunts and uncles in America; drank some evenings, and insisted he sit with her in the cavernous lighted living room of their bungalow as she talked about the snow and Christmases in Chicago. Then she would rise and dance to the Victrola—dance about the room, with or without him, as the moths beat against the screens. "Whatever you do," she said, "never lose your sense of humor. And dance! I hope for God's sake you can dance!" And Malone got up and danced for her. Afterward he dreamed of sleighs and snowy nights, of his mother always loving him, of his being the best dancer, of mittens and blankets, and falling snow. On the hottest nights, as the trade winds blew through the bungalow, he dreamed of snow; on the endless afternoons, of being a saint; but he was always dreaming.
Malone had one of those sweet, receptive natures that take impressions like hot wax: years later, when he had been sent away, he would remember the oil-black shadows the date palms cast on the patio floor in the moonlight; or his mother dancing in that lighted room; the distressed moan of the wind against the shut louvers; the sunburned faces of the Dutch sailors who came out after showering to sit on the veranda of their hotel next to the church he attended with his mother; the cologne she wore to church and the tendrils of her hair curled behind her ears, damp from the shower; the sunlight slanting across tiles; the shine of granite rocks baking in the sun; the wind in the sea grape trees. But the impressions he took from that lighted bungalow, like the hot days and dreams of northern snow, were contradictory. His mother bequeathed him a loving heart, his father a certain German coldness that surprised him later in life
For there is no more sensual place on earth. On Saturdays he went to the blazing white movie house in whose dark womb he watched Errol Flynn jumping onto burning decks to rescue Olivia de Havilland, and when he came outside into the dazzling sunlight, there were the cocoa palms, the lapis lazuli waters of the film itself. At night the trade winds moaned in the louvers as he lay in bed; a dog barked far away under the huge moon, the almond trees creaked in the breeze; and Malone dreamed the usual dreams of a boy his age—of cowboys, and Superman, and pirates—but with this difference: that outside, under the date palms, by the lagoons, was the setting for those dreams, as real as the shoes lying beside his bed on the floor. When he was twelve he gave up the dream of being a pirate, and replaced it with being a saint. He began coming home after school in the afternoons, and the catechism class that followed it, not to play ball, but to sequester himself in his room, kneeling, to pray to a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and hope Christ would manifest Himself. His family said nothing as he said a Grace over his soup which lasted so long that by the time he lifted the first spoonful of cold liquid to his lips, they were eating dessert.
His beautiful mother went to parties at night in perfume and necklaces; took Malone to mass in the village and made him light candles for his aunts and uncles in America; drank some evenings, and insisted he sit with her in the cavernous lighted living room of their bungalow as she talked about the snow and Christmases in Chicago. Then she would rise and dance to the Victrola—dance about the room, with or without him, as the moths beat against the screens. "Whatever you do," she said, "never lose your sense of humor. And dance! I hope for God's sake you can dance!" And Malone got up and danced for her. Afterward he dreamed of sleighs and snowy nights, of his mother always loving him, of his being the best dancer, of mittens and blankets, and falling snow. On the hottest nights, as the trade winds blew through the bungalow, he dreamed of snow; on the endless afternoons, of being a saint; but he was always dreaming.
Malone had one of those sweet, receptive natures that take impressions like hot wax: years later, when he had been sent away, he would remember the oil-black shadows the date palms cast on the patio floor in the moonlight; or his mother dancing in that lighted room; the distressed moan of the wind against the shut louvers; the sunburned faces of the Dutch sailors who came out after showering to sit on the veranda of their hotel next to the church he attended with his mother; the cologne she wore to church and the tendrils of her hair curled behind her ears, damp from the shower; the sunlight slanting across tiles; the shine of granite rocks baking in the sun; the wind in the sea grape trees. But the impressions he took from that lighted bungalow, like the hot days and dreams of northern snow, were contradictory. His mother bequeathed him a loving heart, his father a certain German coldness that surprised him later in life
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