She moved like a soft-bodied rugby player. A new participant in my Alternative Body Movements dance class, she was not a bad student, just not a trained dancer. In the impromptu routines that I had everyone follow at the end of class, she was blocky and stiff. She’d looked uncomfortable, almost ungainly, lacking the lissome figure of any of the other dancers, male or female.
She’d slipped out quickly at the end of the first class, and as I watched her tromp out in puffy moon boots, I hoped she’d come back to grab a forgotten hat or scarf so that I could get her name.
That night I reviewed snatches of her movements in my head. A familiar habit, one accompanied by a longing I couldn’t identify. Not amorous, I knew, even though I was partnerless at the time. I’d left my last relationship when I felt being single would be better than dwindling connection.
So why this interest? Why this intrigue starting to rumble around my chest?
I approached the new addition after her second class. She was putting on a pair of black canvas slippers with brick-colored plastic soles.
“Those have no support for your feet,” I said. “It must hurt to walk around the city. Especially in this cold and wet.” Out past the barre, drooping clouds backed the dripping spires and stone facades of late-winter Antwerp. She didn’t move, and I tried again. “Welcome to the class. I’m Jens.”
She looked up. “Oh, no, really, the shoes aren’t a problem,” she said, shaking her head. Her black hair unraveled from its bun and fell towards her shoulders. “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”
Her English was inflected with a British accent, and I assumed she must have been from Hong Kong, even though it had been over a quarter-century since its return to China.
“What brings you to this class? We don’t usually get students from Hong Kong in Belgium these days.” Plenty of climate refugees from Bangladesh, the Middle East, and Africa, but not from East or Southeast Asia, even with the millions displaced by the disappearance of Philippine islands and the flooding of Shanghai.
“Hong Kong? Oh, I’m not from there.” She pulled a maroon cashmere sweater over her black leotard top. “I’m taking your class to figure out a little bit more about human movement. It’s for a device I’m developing.”
“A device? What do you mean?”
“Yeah, a haptic device for some of my pieces in my upcoming show. I’m working with holographic projectors too.”
She must have noticed some perplexity in my face. “It’s a device that will allow the audience to feel movement and touch in my art.”
“And you came here to study dance?”
“I’m studying art at the Royal Academy, but my first degree was in computer science and electrical engineering.”
“Huh,” I said, not unkindly. “We certainly don’t get much of your kind in these classes.” Her explanation was enough for me to understand the reason for her lumberjack moves.
“I’m moving into multimedia, exploring how to incorporate movement and interactivity.” She stretched out her arm and watched her hand as she splayed her fingers in a full stretch. “I know it’s not usual for non-dancers to take, but I watched your class the other day, and I love your choice of music. I know there’s a lot I can learn from that alone. I haven’t heard anything like most of the pieces you play.”
Any run-of-the-mill instructor could use pop or classical pieces to teach. For my students, I liked to break expectations. I set pieces to Mandingue guitar instrumentals, Bulgarian choral pieces, Thai hill tribe songs, looped Saami joiks, Korean p’ansori… anything with unexpected sounds or elusive beats.
After her third attendance at class, where I tried not to focus too much attention on her despite her difficulty following the movements, she handed me a note addressed to “Teacher.” I realized at that moment that I hadn’t yet gotten her name.
“Tiam,” she said. The name sounded like a foot falling to the floor. “It’s one of the pronunciations of my professional name.”
“One of? What do you mean?”
“I write my professional name with a simple dot, like a full stop at the end of a sentence. Tiam is the pronunciation in my home language.”
“Ah, then here we can call you: Punt.” I gave her the Flemish word.
“Punt? I like that.”
“And why did you choose that?”
“I’ll let you try to figure that out,” she winked, turned, and glided out of the room without looking back.
A mystery, eh? I waved a gentle goodbye then looked down at the note she’d given me.
“You are invited to a Conversation with the Three Creek Group.” The name was followed by three Chinese characters, which must have been the name in Chinese: 三川团. “., Ddeokk, and Biǝt will explore the value of emptiness with you. Audience participation encouraged.”
The location of the event was to be on the grounds of the Middleheim Museum, a less than ten-minute cycle ride from the Conservatory. “Find us amongst the sculptures on the grounds.”
* * *
The gathering was ten days later. When I arrived at the park gates, it was a bitter, misty morning, a chilling sleet surely on its way. I crossed the moat and wandered through the park, catching the brief scent of broken twigs and slush-soaked mud. I headed toward the museum and came to a cracked concrete and re-bar sphere of an installation where I saw two men standing.
“Is this where the discussion is happening?” I said in my native Flemish as I reached a pair of young men in synthetic parkas, one orange, one blue.
“Yeah, well, we’re not sure either. You’d think they would have been clearer about where to meet,” one of the men responded.
“I guess we’re meant to go find them,” I said, scanning the copse skirting the path. “So, let’s go.” I stuck out my hand for a shake and introduced myself. The two responded in a like manner, then we paused and looked around for our next destination.
We hunted through the dripping trees, stopping at another glittering, bouncing rubber sculpture. A flexible metal duct attached to the sculpture emitted multi-colored smoke. A few people looked on, pointing at the smoke and dodging the duct. Nearby, four others stood checking out the rest of the park.
“Maybe they’re still inside the building?” Orange-parka hiked his thumb over his shoulder behind him at the central hall.
As we headed toward the front of the porcelain-white villa, we heard hooting, like tropical birds, calling from three directions. Searching for the source of the sounds, I found my dancer joining two others. The ends of a long, cream-colored, woolen overcoat kicked out with her feet as she walked.
“Yalla, Yalla,” one of the hooters called out, waving his arm to signal everyone to gather around them at a series of prostrate bronze statues, what looked to be a horizontal version of Rodin’s Burghers of Calais. I’d studied this piece—“Slaves and Corpses”—on a previous visit.
Punt was speaking an unfamiliar language, but we adjusted our comms devices to capture the translation. “I told you once,” she began, her voice uncommonly brusque. “From emptiness, we return.”
One of the other two, Ddeokk or Biǝt, spoke from inside a super-sized, brown paper bag that they’d pulled over themselves as we were gathering. The slightly muffled voice came out as English washed with a French accent. “Zere is value to the nussingness we are.”
I stifled my snort. Hadn’t I heard dialogue like this at a Waiting for Godot performance as a teen? I was sure I knew where it was going.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” my new companion in blue said to the bag. “Biǝt, you had us come out in the cold for this?”
I squirmed. Perhaps they were good friends and had been told that it was okay to address the performers.
The bag was silent. Punt spoke, bowing and releasing her shoulders in a move I’d taught her in the class two sessions before. “Take your seats,” the one who must have been Ddeokk said. “Now we discuss.”
I sat on the shoulders of a washerwoman on her hands and knees. The cold of the metal bled through my trousers. But, with the distraction in front of me, I found it only slightly uncomfortable. A young woman in a crowd of three had to keep adjusting herself as the rib bones of what must have been a bull carcass dug into her buttocks.
“We’ll do this as a rolling discussion,” Punt said. “Each of us will come to your group to see where you get.”
I looked at my two compatriots, and we settled down from sneers to a conversation. “I’ve got too much love for my family,” one of them started to address the topic, “to believe that emptiness is valuable.” We wandered across topics, from love to passion to drive and ambition. The premise of the event slowly melted away.
As our conversation faltered, Punt came over. I greeted her and then explained, “Punt, you don’t have any takers here.”
Her response was swift and confident. “Then surely you’re not trying hard enough.”
“Ah,” I said, “Wait.”
She stopped, and the other two looked at me. “Wait for it,” I continued.
We fell silent, hearing only the dripping of collected mist from the bones of the sculptures and the murmurs of others in their discussion groups.
“Yes,” Punt said, “This is it.”
I put up my hand to indicate I wanted to listen more. “You may go,” she said, retreating from our group, her waving hands whisking us away like a busy mother.
From the few short times I’d interacted with her, I found that I was becoming drawn to her. Not physically or amorously, at least I assumed it wasn’t that, but something more potent than just finding her an interesting person. She was a mix of contradictions: clunky yet graceful, forceful but gentle, witty, intelligent, open, creative. Talking with her was almost like fulfilling a craving, something I hadn’t tasted since my university days.
I needed her in my next piece. I could imagine it at that moment as she moved on to another grouping. With just a little smoothing of her actions, she’d be less awkward but different enough to serve as a foil for my other dancers.
“Close your eyes and take a deep breath, gentlemen,” I said professorially. “I’m sure there’s more, but also, in the spirit of this gathering, there’s not.” I smiled. Punt had to know there was pretension in this gathering, even as it may have pointed toward some truth. I didn’t mind the contradiction. Perhaps she was just being playful?
The three of us sat silently and then, one by one, peeled off. As I got up, I looked over at Punt, her nose sniffling as she leaned against her paper-bag friend. Biǝt had punched through the sides of the paper bag with both hands and held Punt in an embrace from behind. My body slumped at the sight. Or was that a pang in my back and shoulders? If Punt could have seen the ease of her body at that moment, she would have known why I wanted her in my piece.
* * *
At the next class she attended, I approached her again at the end. “Thank you for inviting me to your gathering.”
“You didn’t find it too silly?”
“W-well, no.” I started to fumble for words, as I could tell I lay close to starting a lie. “Not too silly. Or at least part silly and part true.”
“That’s good enough for me. It was prep for my show in Brussels in a few months.”
“What did you and your group get from it?”
Her eyes flickered a combination of pride and joy. “Humor. Participation,” she wiped at some sweat at her temple, “Confusion. Derision. Community.”
“Did everyone end up like we did, enjoying the silence?”
“I think so.”
“You don’t know?”
“No. The three of us left while others remained.”
“Partly silly. I see.”
She closed her eyes, bent her head down, and then looked me straight in the eye with a mischievous grin.
“Punt,” I said, noticing the blue of her shaded contacts. Flecks of gold and silver pierced the contacts as her head moved in the light. “I need you in my piece.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I want you in my festival piece celebrating the two-hundred-and-fifty years of Belgian independence.”
“Me, in your next piece? A dance performance?” She tipped her head towards her shoulder, “You’ve seen me, right? You know I can’t dance.”
“That’s part of the point,” I paused and eyed two of my students exiting the studio in happy conversation. “No, look, I know you can. You can move.” I looked around the room at the ten or so other students still in the room, some of whom would be in the same piece: some women thin enough they might snap, one male dancer with shoulders like a swimmer. “I don’t have a name for it.”
“What’s it about?”
“I’m not sure about that yet either.”
“I tell you what,” she said. She looked at me and pushed her finger towards my chest, stopping and pulling back her hand before touching me. I felt a momentary yearning to lean into her finger.
“Yes?” I said. “What do you want to tell me?”
“No,” she waved her hand and shook her head. “That’s not what I meant—‘I Tell You What’—that’s what you should call your piece. But do it in my mother tongue. ‘Wa ga li gong,’” she said. “That’s the name. My translation’s off. It’s more like, ‘Hey, listen here.’”
“Wa ga li gong,” I repeated a poor impression of the clipped, nasal sounds that came from her.
“But no trashy orientalism in it, please.”
The images starting to form in my head fell to the ground: embroidered gold silken robes now in a pile, Chinese opera masks, and red lacquer drums tossed aside. Of course, I would have to keep away from trite images if I wanted the audience to think.
“You’ve got me,” she started again, “but let me help.”
A collaboration. “Let’s say co-create.”
“Yes, yes. Or half-destroy.”
“Too much coy,” I said, “You’re too much coy.”
“I’m still working myself out,” she responded, wiping her cheek as if she were waking from a nap. “I need some help with your moves.”
A flurry of discordant images swirled around my head: positioning her thigh while she knelt, holding her under her arms in a lift. “I’m not going to do that,” I said, unsure why I felt hesitant to touch her. “You’re going to have to work with the other dancers first.”
* * *
Over the next several weeks, I formed the structure of the piece. We’d perform on the reconstructed stone corner ramparts of the city. It would be a traveling piece; the audience would have to take the metro or pay for their own transports to attend the seven movements if they wanted to see it in its entirety. I’d wait until the weather had warmed into spring.
As the threads of my pieces started to come together, Punt attended most of the classes but either showed up late or left early, only apologizing slightly with a shallow bow and a hands-together forgiveness prayer as she entered or withdrew from the studio.
When I announced separate practice sessions for “Wa Ga Li Gong,” one of the dancers I’d tapped as a principal for the piece, shaved head and cautious grey eyes, came up to me after class.
“If that non-dancer is going to be in the piece,” he said, “don’t you want her to participate in the practice?”
“Yes, of course. And I’d like you to help guide her, Timon.”
“But if she doesn’t come to practice, how can I?”
If she doesn’t participate, where was my piece? My breath shortened at the thought of the piece without her.
* * *
Fortunately, at the next class, she showed up as the students were finishing up their stretches at the barre. The wall of mirrors around the room turned their figures into pink and black cogs in a machine.
Punt’s hair was in pigtails, five thin ones bunching up at the back of her head like some sort of cockscomb or headdress. I suddenly expected rooster-like movements from her, but instead, she ambled over to me, relaxed and smooth.
“Hello, Teacher,” she proclaimed loudly enough that a few of the other dancers across the room looked over at us. “I’ve got some great news!”
“Tell me,” I said quietly, off-guard from the surprise of her declaration. Seeing her, the anxiety at my piece falling apart began to dissipate.
“Well, first: I’m sorry about not coming to class.”
I couldn’t stop looking at her. Her broad cheeks, the arc where her neck met her clavicle bones, her long fingers. Feeling a need to insert some formality, I said, “It’s a drop-in class; you’re welcome to come and go as you please.”
“Oh,” she said, looking down at her feet.
I immediately felt sorry for what I’d said.
“So, you don’t need me anymore?”
I tried to hold back a frown. Impatience and that now-familiar feeling of craving spiraled within me.
“No. Wait. Yes, of course, I do. But I need you to show up to class. I’m still figuring out your movement and how you fit in.”
“Yes, of course,” she said, admonished. “But isn’t what you want me for my lack of skill? If I keep coming to class, won’t that erase what you want?”
She had me there. “Is that why you haven’t come?”
“Maybe.” She smiled just slightly, a twinkle in her eye.
“I want both,” I said. “I’m going to have a few other completely unpracticed people there, so don’t worry about that. You can keep learning about your movement here. I’m not worried your movements will become adulterated in six weeks. But, I need you at least to see what the other dancers are doing in the piece.”
“There’s a better reason too.” She pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin.
“Better reason? For what?”
“For why I haven’t been here.”
“Right, sorry. You were going to tell me.”
“Yes. I have good news.” Her face returned to beaming.
“You’re getting married?”
Two notes of a laugh burst from her as she covered her mouth with one hand and reached out and gently slapped my chest,
“Oh, no, no, no. Of course not, Teacher!”
My shoulders relaxed. “Then what is it?”
“Well, I sold a piece, and now I’ve got a commission too. Paid in full!” Her pigtails bounced as she looked around the room at the other dancers. “Now I can start my more serious work. I’m going to change the world.” The pinch of her eyes signaled the seriousness of her intent.
“Change the world? Wow! Congratulations!” Didn’t we all think our art had this capacity?
“My Brussels show seems to have attracted some attention. We must celebrate!”
“We must? Don’t you have another teacher to thank?”
Her face returned to me. Her eyes were serious.
“Oh, no. My teachers didn’t have anything to do with this commission.”
“But I did?”
“Oh, no, no, no.”
I was thoroughly confused and screwed up my face in response. Did she ever make sense?
“I like it here. I like the other dancers. I like the music. I like what you’ve taught me.”
Good enough reasons.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make your show in Brussels. I’m a little bit allergic to Brussels right now.” I was referring to the recent exposé on educational policies that were further disenfranchising the Flemish. I wasn’t a nativist, but sometimes one just gets tired of watching the steamroller prepare for another pass.
“That’s okay,” she said, “It was in a small gallery. But I got visitors from all over the world.”
“What did you call the show?”
“‘The Lovely Voice of Nihilism.’ The name came to me from our gathering at Middleheim.”
“I’m very happy for you. And I accept your invitation to celebrate. But I should be the one treating you.”
“No. That’s not right. When you have success, you should treat others. So, it’s my treat.” Unexpectedly, she turned to the rest of the room, “Anyone who wants a beer after class, come with me!”
Soft applause and cheers arose around the class amidst looks of curiosity and astonishment.
Ah, I realized, a group party, not a personal thank you.
I recovered. “Before we start out, what was the name of the commission? And the piece you sold?”
“It’s called Stones like Feathers,” she said. “The buyer is anonymous. He bought it through some agency in the United States, but he wants it shipped somewhere in Southeast Asia. The other piece is a reference to a Taoist saying. It doesn’t have a name in English.”
“Feathers and Stones. I hope the shipping doesn’t ruin it; it sounds a little risky.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. A lot of it’s digital. I can ship the pieces and assemble them there.”
“Fantastic,” I said, “Southeast Asia. Maybe you’ve got a trip to Borobudur or Angkor Wat in your future.”
“That is why we must celebrate,” she said, a mix of earnestness and glee in her voice. “Thank you, Teacher.”
I stood there, unsure of what to say next.
“Don’t we have class now?”
The students were all looking at me, standing, shaking out their hands, ready.
“Of course,” I said and trotted, embarrassed, over to my teaching position at the front of the class. As I passed her, a pale, red-headed crane of a student I’d chosen to join the piece whispered, “Be careful.”
Was she referring to Punt’s erratic behavior or was my fascination starting to show?
* * *
The beer roustabout that evening was joyous for us all. Malty ale and honey-colored pine walls warmed us as we settled in. I described the principles of “Wa Ga Li Gong” to the students. “It’s about all the wagging fingers around us,” I explained. “The government’s campaign that everyone ‘embody European values.’ Or how the New Europeans want us to welcome and support the climate refugees. And the voices of those who oppose them saying how we should resist.” Sincere nods from wide-eyed students who looked like they were being handed some new truth. “It’s also about having some ideas for changing the situation.”
I turned to Punt as she downed the last of her first pint of ale. “Isn’t that right, Punt? Your phrase can be both an order and a suggestion.”
Punt’s cheeks rose into a broad smile. It almost made me tremble: I loved the glow of that look. She erupted with, “Hey, tell you what, Teacher. Let me teach you all some phrases! You can add them to the piece if you like.”
The next pint was accompanied by laughter and Punt helping us hear and reproduce the sounds of her Southern Min language, spoken, she explained, in Fujian province and Taiwan. “Kak-kin eh: Hurry up!”; “Kuan sianmi: What are you looking at?”; “Sianmi mi: What does that mean?”
I imagined dancers calling these phrases out sporadically throughout the piece’s seven movements. I wanted to include her language in the piece instead of the Lingala, Bengali, and Arabic now commonly called out across the narrow streets of Borgerhout and Sint Andries.
The light behind her eyes told me she knew why: using one of those languages would leave out the others. An orthogonal choice meant no local group was being singled out.
“What about your piece, Punt?” One of the students asked. “Tell us about it. The one you sold.”
“You have to experience it,” she said. “It changes for each of you, depending on how you move.”
“Stones like Feathers? How does that fit?” The female dancer who’d cautioned me in class asked her. Her tone was more challenge than interest.
“You’ll just have to come to our studio to see. But be quick. Before I ship it off.” One of the students repeated the phrase Kak-kin eh, and a few of us laughed while Punt clapped encouragement. The students were enjoying her and asking her questions about her home. For that moment, she was a duchess holding court.
As the last of the group gulped water to combat a painful following morning, we gathered our scarves and sundries from the backs of our chairs.
“You know,” I said as I pulled on my hand-me-down hunting jacket, a mossy green tweed fraying at the cuffs. “You don’t have to call me ‘Teacher’ now.”
Her eyes flashed surprise. “I don’t? That doesn’t seem right. You’re my teacher.”
“Just in the studio. I’m also your collaborator now,” I smiled.
“But, no… I didn’t do anything… we each did our own pieces.”
“Well, yes, sort of. It’s fine, Punt. We all feed each other. Just accept that you’re a recognized artist now. You’ve got your first piece sold!”
As we filtered outside, the pale redhead slipped in the mashed snow of the gutter. A classmate caught her and steadied her. Three other students were laughing at each other’s wobbly grand jetés. I looked at Punt and noticed something like tears pooling in the corner of Punt’s eyes. “It’s the cold,” she said, noticing me looking at her. “And, don’t worry, the next time I see you, I’ll have a name for you.”
“Goodnight, Tiam,” I said, remembering the name from her first self-introduction.
“Oh, don’t bother with that,” she said. “Stick with Punt for now. I’ll probably change my name again soon enough!”
I shook my head smiling and waved off a goodbye: my arm a long arc held aloft, two-and-three-and, before bringing it down. My heart was full of promise, filled by her contradictions.
* * *
Over the following weeks, Punt showed up to the performance rehearsals on time and eager. Her humor and enthusiasm brought a lightness to the whole group. For her, some slips, some lurches, some awkward jumps. Her hand went right to her forehead to cover her embarrassment. I loved it. Her engineering background gave me some uncommon thoughts. Uncommon for me, at least, as they were scientifically oriented. I had her react to two of the leads as a third electron around the pair. She bounced, she laughed, she circled.
Something wasn’t quite working for the other dancers, though. Broad-shouldered Timon stopped me before one rehearsal.
“Could you control her a little more?”
“Take a look at her. You know that’s impossible.”
“But she’s stepping on our toes, bumping us, throwing us off.”
I’d witnessed it but had told the dancers to go with it. I was silent for a moment. “I’ll give it some thought.”
Controlling her was exactly what I didn’t want to do. And yet, there was something I could add: some grace, some intention, some care. That meant making physical contact with her, which I realized I had been reluctant to do. It was as if an opposing magnetic force was keeping me away—a beautiful aura: a warm, gold-and-blue that repelled me like a force field.
Eventually, however, I had to touch her. There were just some positions I needed her to try to get to over the course of the piece: a wide-legged stance like a rock that moved into a star shape, one foot steady on the ground, same-side arm reaching down, the other two splayed out reaching for the sky. “With your permission,” I said as I reached to guide one of her arms. “Of course,” she said, “but I don’t know why you worry. You like men, don’t you?”
Was she really so forward? I never mentioned my private life to my students. I had been without a boyfriend for two years. I’d not been physically intimate with anyone since my last boyfriend had left. Loneliness poked its head from time to time, especially around coupled friends, but I’d kept that at bay with a heavy teaching schedule. At bay, that was, until maybe now.
My mouth remained shut, and I knelt down to support her leg with my shoulder so she could feel the backward extension I was seeking. Through the force field-a millisecond of a carnival ride rushed through me as I helped her raise her leg.
“Yes,” I said, “at least historically.” What on earth was going on with me?
“I’m not worried,” she said. “It’s fine. I was a man not long ago if that makes you feel more comfortable.”
That may have explained some of her movement, but that wasn’t it. Whatever it was, she was far more than the sum of her parts.
* * *
Two run-throughs before the dress rehearsal, we moved to practice at each of the wall sites to set the pieces in their respective performance space. The sites were variations on a theme: hexagonal stone plazas spattered with saplings in tree wells. Park benches faced out from under the ramparts. Spring was fighting to get in. The pointed, purple cases of the pear and cherry tree buds were determined to break into bloom; freezing rain be damned.
Evening passersby gathered to watch our practice, some whispering to dancers on the side, asking about the piece. Hovertrams and electric transports whirred by behind them, not loud enough to compete with the music coming from the musicians I’d hired.
“I’ve come up with my name for you, Teacher,” Punt said in the orange light of the sodium floodlights perched on the ramparts. A mist swirled around us and seeped into the stone.
“And what’s wrong with my actual name?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “That name means nothing to me.”
I tilted my head at her, perplexed. “So, what is it?”
“And-three-and,” she said, eyes bright.
“What’s that?”
“It’s from you counting us back into our steps.” She looked at me as if searching for a micro-quiver of disapproval from my lips and eyes.
“It’s cumbersome, isn’t it?”
“I don’t need to use it that often. Maybe just in our correspondence.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
The corners of her mouth fell, and her lower lip parted from its mate. “I… I didn’t know how to tell you,” she said.
“Tell me what?”
“I’m going.” She looked down. “I have to go.”
“Going where? What?” A jumble of questions pushed at my lips, ready to fall from my mouth. “When?”
“Phnom Penh.” She looked slightly sad.
“Cambodia? Well, that’s great! For the commission, you mean. Congratulations!”
“Well, yes…” Punt looked around at the other dancers, bundling up and readying to move on to the next performance station.
Timon came over to where we were standing.
“Punt,” he said, “there are some people here to see you.”
I looked over and recognized a co-conspirator from the Three Creek Group: Biǝt.
Punt ran over to the man as if skipping. I hope she incorporates that.
She greeted him as if she were still in the rehearsal: she raised an arm and opposite leg, stretching into a sloppy arabesque.
He pulled her close, lips to her ear, and whispered.
I could only see a quarter of her face, but I could see her cheeks raise into a smile, then lower. She looked back over her shoulder at me. Biǝt looked at me too, no connection, no warmth.
If he indeed had her in the rest of her life, he couldn’t have her here.
I called everyone back to their places.
“Punt, give it your energy like it’s the actual performance. Keep your balance. Keep some grace, like I showed you. Like water.”
She nodded as the bops of the music started to fill the space.
The rhapsody of movement began. Hydrogen became Deuterium became Tritium. Timon and his partner jumped in opposite directions as Punt elbowed her way between the two. I had wanted to portray the “both-and” state of quantum mechanics that is always at the back of my mind, but lacking identical twins, that wasn’t to be with this piece.
I went over to an observer and whispered to her to walk through the performers without touching them. Five other dancers came on the scene.
I circled half of the performance space and asked another observer to walk through. I watched as the waves formed, in, out, around. This was going to work. Hands came out shaking, fingers pointed, to cries of “Hey, listen here,” in our approximation of Punt’s tongue.
I looked over at Punt’s visitor, and he looked at me expectantly as if I was going to ask him to enter the scene.
Not a chance.
Timon and his partner stared at Punt as she brought her arms together and tried a half-turn, then bent at the waste into a slump before jerking herself back upright. She stumbled and fell to her knee. Her two partners came to envelop her image, squeezing her out of existence, then pulled away. She jerked to her feet, her body now an “X.”
A blast of wind and sleet blew down from the stolid walls. Punt jumped up and wiped her face. “Don’t come out of the piece,” I instructed, my voice bouncing back off the wall over the music. She looked over at me, then past me, re-focusing on the dance.
Another thirty seconds and the movement ended with a chorus of the Flemish and French versions of “Wa ga li gong” barked by the dancers, hands still shaking.
After a moment of silence backed only by the applause of the few gathered around the performance space, the dancers broke apart and began congratulating each other.
Biǝt walked up to Punt, and she turned to face him. She looked over at me but quickly averted her eyes. Was he her boyfriend?
Head tall, stride long, I stepped quickly to the corps, clapping, patting shoulders, and helping them with their coats and scarves.
“And-three-and,” the man turned to me, extending a thin, firm hand. “Thank you for what you’ve done for Tiam. It’s going to help her with her next piece in Cambodia.” His Flemish was beautiful.
“I’m happy to hear it.”
“I’m sorry to cut tonight short, though.”
“You have to leave? The next site is just ten minutes away.”
“I’m sorry, no. The airport…”
Punt came over; a light blue cashmere sweater pulled over her torso, and her hair bundled up under a maroon wool toque.
“I’m sorry, And-three-and.” She put her hands together and closed her eyes. ”I’ve got to go. Biǝt just told me about my client. Things are heating up. I can’t explain. It’s a government thing. It’s my catalyst. I’ve got to go tonight.”
Biǝt took her bag and put his arm around her to guide her off.
“Tonight? But… but you’ll be back for the performance, right?” Of course, she would.
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I know my work is more important.”
“More important for what?”
“I’m going to change the world.” Her voice was forceful.
Biǝt nodded and held his arm out, offering her her retreat.
“But, Tiam,” I called out, “What are you doing?” No words could help me at that point.
As she walked away, she called over her shoulder, “Listen for it….”
I smiled, remembering her event at Middleheim.
The next moment, they were on Biǝt’s scooter, merging into traffic.
I waved farewell, but she didn’t look back. An unfamiliar pain crept down my arm.
* * *
With that disappearance, ”Wa Ga Li Gong” fell apart. I became a deflating balloon. Without her smile, the corps was just a group of professional dancers—no more texture.
I tried to locate Punt a few times, thinking she must have returned to Antwerp, but I could find no contact information. I asked after Biǝt and Ddeokk. I once bumped into the two men I’d enjoyed the moment with at Middleheim. No, they hadn’t heard anything new about her nor seen any announcements about the group. No Punt. No Tiam. She was gone.
I postponed the piece, hoping she’d return. When two months passed with no news, I tried to find another to replace her. By then, my interest had faded faster than the arrival of summer. We’d lost our slot. A band of musicians took our spot at the ramparts, moving from one to the other as I had planned. It was a good band, one whose music I ended up using in class.
Not a fair exchange, but who was I to say?
* * *
I moved on. I had to.
From nowhere, Anders moved into my heart. My smile returned. Had I needed the loss of Punt to open me up to a new partner? He certainly brought what she could not: holding hands, rocking hips, ecstasy, the warm blanket of our mutual embrace. In came a content I hadn’t realized I’d been missing. Or had, but had pushed away. We had differing interests, but ones that complemented each other, like his love of growing vegetables while I brought flowers to life. Our garden fed us visually and physically.
I got back on my horse and created two new works and showed them in the fall, Cast Mirrors and Shock of the Rock: memories of moments with her, the strutting rooster I’d expected, the creative five-pigtailed hairstyle, the abrupt declarations, and soft retreats.
As I settled into a life of domesticity and shared delight with Anders, I still thought of Punt and wondered where she had gotten to. With the Sihanoukville Uprising and the fall of Phnom Penh, I thought of her. Had she been there? Had she survived?
* * *
Two years later, watching the news locked down one evening at home as protestors clashed with each other across the city, I saw her. I felt the pang of seeing someone you almost loved, unreachable like the peak of a mountain across an ocean strait.
She appeared in a story about an art festival in China dedicated to new technologies in flight, sound, and movement. It was headlined by a major Chinese artist going by the name of Tzyy. A headshot of the artist revealed a short-haired version of someone resembling our former Punt. The cheekbones confirmed it.
The new name was not a surprise, but my mind formed questions the broadcast couldn’t answer. Why had she left? The government—ours or hers? Why hadn’t she stayed in touch? What had she become?
There was only the answer to the last question: she was now a celebrated artist.
A clip of the start of the piece followed: a jumble of camera shots skipped between the cameras of circling drones as they dodged men swinging baseball bats. As I watched and tried to make sense of the piece, I noticed some writing at the bottom right corner, appearing as if the signature of a painting:
To: +3+
In gratitude,
.
I called to Anders to show him. He watched the scene and looked at me, uncertain. “Look in the lower corner,” I said.
He squinted at the screen, then pulled back with a grin. “Aha, your friend! There she is,” he proclaimed, clamping his hands on my shoulders from behind the sofa where I sat. “And now you know you were memorable to her too.”
I interlocked fingers with Anders’ left hand and watched the men and their movements. Some broke into the star shape I’d tried with Punt, bats in their groundward hand for balance. I’d had some effect on her, at least. And yet, I’d thought it was she who had affected me.
As the piece continued, I closed my eyes and returned to that cold morning at Middleheim. And like that morning, I sat there and just listened.
The value of nothingness? Anders’ hands, her smile, my heart.
Anthony St. George writes from the San Francisco Bay Area, where images from his daily urban and rural hikes, travels, and Ph.D. in Chinese and Korean Classical Literature often combine to form his stories. Anthony stories appear in such publications as New Maps, The Ocotillo Review, and most recently, The Thieving Magpie. Links to his publications are found at: https://anthonystgeorge.com/