Ice Waltz

© 2004 Daria Karpova
All rights reserved.

She should have turned to the left.

Damn.

Grace tried to reverse but found it impossible. She cursed under her breath and went on moving along the narrow, ice-coated road. The leaden clouds hung low, almost touching the tops of the dark old trees that towered along both sides of the road.

Suddenly the forest gave way to the open air, and the road led downhill. Grace sighed in relief when she saw the lake. The map must have been wrong, and her intuition had proven to be right, no matter how often she'd questioned it.

The lake was small and perfectly round, its ice coverage pristine. The house stood near, as white as the first snow of this winter. It seemed new and bright, though Grace knew nobody had lived here for a long, long time.

Of course she knew. She recognized the house immediately. When she'd been looking for a house to buy, she'd seen its picture among many others at the agency. When she'd been told about its history, she hadn't hesitated a single moment. However lovely it looked, she would never buy it and live there. Never.

It was so lonely.

How could she survive in such isolation, with nothing to console her, nothing to heal her? Nothing to make her forget.

How many years—ten, twelve? Thirteen, she thought with a cold slash of pain that had not yet become familiar enough to fade. James. His quiet grave under the shady trees of the old cemetery in New Orleans. So far away, yet not far enough to forget. Grace had never loved anyone else. Had never been loved by anyone else. James, her love, her life, her pain.

That morning in the office, Grace hadn't been sure what had pushed her to change her mind about the house. But five minutes later she had gotten the map and the keys from the real estate lady and headed north.

Now there was space for turning around, but Grace had already forgotten about it. She got out of the car, the high heels of her boots sliding on the slippery, icy blocks of the narrow path to the house.

Her legs led her to the door almost against her will. She stood in the doorway for a second and glanced over the quiet lake. The orange glow of the setting sun danced on its ice. The dark trees of the forest surrounded the lake like eyelashes framing an eye. Waiting. Watching her.

She shook her head, stepped inside, and the door shut behind her.

The strange smell filled her nostrils, if the ice had its own odor; that was it: cold and light, stirring and calming at the same time, merging into the silver-white radiance of melted stars. The hall was brilliant, too. Grace wondered why she hadn't seen the light in the windows from outside. It was perfectly clean; not a single dust ball rolled on the floor, and newly polished bronze lamps and candelabrums shone. Grace would have sworn the house were inhabited, if she hadn't talked to the real estate agent just that morning.

And it was as cold here as outside. Grace smiled to herself. She knew one thing for sure—she would spend the night here, and tomorrow, as soon as the agency started working, the house would become hers. She'd been born to live here.

To die here.

The thought was odd, a stranger's thought in her own mind, but something in her embraced it, welcomed the silent presence wrapping her in a cold sweetness that numbed her pain, made it endurable, almost pleasant.

The tune of the old waltz came from behind the closed doors in front of her. Clear, crystal sounds, as if somebody were playing a piano made of ice. Grace stood frozen to the floor, looking at the doors, high and white, patterned with winding golden lines.

The next instant the doors flung open.

The ice piano was still playing.

Grace sat on the white couch in the living room, her fur coat hugging her shoulders. She was too cold to think clearly and too mesmerized to leave. Shadows moved behind the huge, unadorned windows. Shadows nodded to her, invited her to go out. To join them.

Grace cursed her imagination. There were no ghosts. No shadows. Nothing except snow outside and some old furniture inside. Yet she didn't move. She sat staring out the French window overlooking the lake.

She saw trees swaying to the tune around the lake. Moonlight glistened on the ice; snowflakes danced like falling stars. Yet inside the shining cloud over the surface of the lake were ... silhouettes. Grace wanted to run and hide in some windowless room, but instead she rose and crossed the room to get a better view.

She wanted to cry. She already felt tears burning in her eyes, ready to stream down her cheeks. What had she wasted all her life for? Working day after day, walking round and round in the circle of routine. Once she had enjoyed the simplest things. Then she had James. Then she lost him.

Now she was just wasting time again.

The silhouettes over the lake were taking shape, as if the shining air itself condensed, forming the soft folds of dresses, the dainty lines of arms, the flowing outlines of hair. The ghosts of the lake, the shadows of the stars on the crystal snow. They were nothing but illusion, but why was the illusion more alive than anyone she'd ever met?

Grace sat down on the floor and cried her heart out. All her childhood dreams had come back to haunt her. Love was a beautiful thing, wasn't it? Oh, love meant lonely nights, love meant married men, love meant hopeless waiting doomed to turn into disappointment. Love meant packages of condoms and embarrassed mornings after.

Even James had betrayed her. She had never visited his grave after the funeral, not even once. She was afraid she'd want to spit on it.

Why had they told her love was magic, and perfect, and worth living for?

Maybe once it had been.

But the toilets of the cheap hotels had flushed all the magic away.

When she had finished crying and sobbing and hiccupping, she collected herself. Wiped the tears away with the hem of her skirt. Stood up and left without looking back.

The piano played louder, promising rest, pleasure, dreams... but Grace didn't believe the sweetness of its voice. When she slammed the door shut, she heard her name whispered by the wind.

But she didn't answer.

And didn't look at the lake.

She rushed to her car, struggled with the door and got inside. And then, while the engine was revving up, she allowed herself one glance at the lake. Just one glance.

The trees stood tall and calm around the lake. The white shores looked pristine. The ice no longer glistened with the light of molten stars. It was smooth and dull, turning the lake into a wide, pale spot under the gloomy skies. Just a winter night, cold as hell.

Grace had thought she had no more tears left in her, but there were plenty. She wept with her head on the wheel, wept like a child with a broken dream, a woman with a dead soul, mourning everything she had lost, even what she'd never had.

She lifted her head, staring at the lake. Her aching eyes didn't see much, but she knew nothing had changed. Yet she had to touch it, at least.

Grace climbed out of the car, her hands bare, her coat unbuttoned. The wind played with her tousled hair, crept under her coat and chilled her skin, but she welcomed it.

She walked along the snow-covered path to the shore. There the path ended, and her high boots sank in the snow. First she tore her way through, then gave up and crawled on all fours.

When she reached the edge of ice, the air started to shimmer. She looked at the sky—the moon glided from behind the clouds, flooding the night with pearly light. Welcoming her. Inspired, Grace tried to get up. At first she slipped and fell. Rose and fell again. Finally, she stood, her heels grounded in snow.

The wind wasn't cold anymore. It caressed her cheeks, smoothed her hair in place. Grace stepped on the ice, not careful anymore. She knew she wouldn't fall. Her feet felt light, like wings.

She whirled around. The house shone with all its lights, beautiful like a dream. Her house. The ice piano began playing in the distance. Softly, tenderly, then closer and closer, the tune gathering power, no more a dance of snowflakes but a storm. Oh, yes, a storm, fury and passion molten into one. White hot fever of winter.

She shrugged off the useless coat. Swayed her shoulders to the music. Turned around.

And saw him waiting for her.

They were dancing.

Yes, they were dancing, and the ice piano played the crystal waltz for them.

The smooth surface of the lake was the floor of their ballroom, and they danced under the starlit sky of winter night. Danced for a minute or for a hundred years. Grace didn't care. The only thing she knew was that since the very first moment she'd seen him, she had belonged to him. They were turning and swirling in the dance, and she didn't feel the ground under her feet. His face was pale like moonlight, his eyes blue and lambent like the stars above them, his body as cold as snow under his white tuxedo, but Grace didn't feel the cold. She clung to him like ice clings to the trees' branches, and nothing was sweeter than his embrace. They danced, they flew, spinning, over the frozen lake, and the wind whirled the snow up and round them.

When they found her in the morning, she lay without her coat on the middle of the lake's surface, her hair loose, her lips smiling, her body half frozen into the lake's ice.

While they waited for a forester with an ice axe to release her body, it seemed to them they heard the music.

The clear, crystal tune of an old waltz.

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