[Nessani Kemenlo]

The afternoon, and every afternoon after, was spent with Nessani sitting in the mirrored room, watching the dancers practice for their evening performances. As they swirled, they would offer suggestions, tips for combining the moves that she had already learned. Occasionally, Ness would rise and practice a particular flutter or step that she had seen, adding other moves on top of it, arms and legs and hips together. Her questions were answered, each time with demonstrations to clarify a marriage of body movements or adding a flourish that Nahara hadn’t deigned to teach.

Her darkenings were spent similarly; utilizing the free time while Anora was at dinner or researching her business to practice grapevines and figure eights. Her belly would roll as she lay in bed, the movement hidden from her cousin by the coverlet. Any errands she was sent on were performed with gushes and swaying walks.

As she practiced, she put together a series of moves that would be used for her final performance in Musif’s bar. Each was strung together and another added on and then practiced in order until she had a rough outline of what she wished to do. Thankfully, this style of dance was well adapted to improvisation, much like the gypsy style of dancing that she was used to, so even if she forgot a step or added something extra, it would still be just as beautiful.

The brightening of her performance arrived and Nessani woke more excited than nervous. At Nahara’s suggestion, her dark mane of hair had been rolled in strips of cloth the night before so that, when they were removed in the morning, Nessani’s hair fell in luscious curls about her shoulders. The women of the bar fussed over her, brushing oil into her hair until the curls shown with a glossy finish. A gauzy veil was placed at the crown of her head to trail down across her hair and shoulders, the edges threaded with coins so that it jingled when she moved.

The halter that they gave her to wear had been altered so that it circled around her neck and then crossed at her chest, leaving her back bare. The waistline of the trousers that she wore was ornately beaded and trimmed with more coins above voluminous leggings. The color of both pieces was somewhere between red and orange – or perhaps it was that the shimmer of the fabric led one to believe it was both, depending on how the light struck it. She looked like fire come to life as she moved, trying out the feel of the fabric. The women offered her sandals in gold, but Nessani declined, preferring to dance barefoot for more control over how her body responded to its surroundings.

Fully dressed, she took a few turns around the mirrored room. The musicians were present, beating the drums to the rhythm and even the snake charmers were playing their instruments to give her a sense of what she would be hearing in the bar – though she had some idea based on the amount of time she had spent there. The women watched her warm up and break into the moves she intended to use, offering pointers here and there to fine-tune her performance. Each suggestion was noted and either accepted or discarded, depending on what Nessani had in mind to portray. A dance was nothing more than a story, visual rather than auditory – a lesson she had learned from watching her sister many times.

She turned in her practice and came face to face with Nahara. The gypsy girl stopped, waiting patiently for her mentor to express what she had come for. A pair of zills were pressed into Nessani’s hands. The petite woman took one, letting Ness hold the rest, and showed her how to put them on her fingers. “Their use comes naturally. You will know what to do with them when the time comes.” When they were all in place, Nessani brought them together into a tentative chime. Her practice continued, this time adding her own chimes to the music to punctuate movements.

The time came faster than expected and finally, Nessani was being ushered to the floor. She wished Oriana could be here; there were few people in her life who supported her completely like her sister. The only other one who came to mind was the man who was responsible for her being in this adopted family. Her eyes scanned the crowded bar to see if he would be there, though she knew he could have been before her eyes and not been seen, if that was his wish. She wondered as well if Musif was watching, but somehow, the only one who really mattered was Khalid.

The music started and the gypsy began to move, only her arms at the first, drawing her audience in with the conservative, snaking movement. She struck a pose, circling her head between pyramided hands. As the music became more insistent, so did her dancing, the movements growing larger and more excited as she gushed to the sides, her hips rising and falling in crisp shimmies. Her arms rose into a soaring eagle, trailing the gauzy veil along. Her hair flounced as she spun giving glimpses of the blazing fire tattoo that spanned her back. The continuous shimmer of the fabric, now red, now orange as she moved through the light, enhanced the illusion that she was afire.

She paused before one unsuspecting client, dancing for a moment as if just for him. Her hips shimmied before his eyes, their movement accented with the jingle of the coins threaded into her waistband. Her form lowered gently to her knees and Nessani bent over backwards before him, her arms and hair trailing the ground behind her as her middle arched into a bridge. She pulled herself forward again with her strong stomach muscles, rising onto one knee, then up to her feet. The bare skin of her belly wavered as the muscles beneath it contracted in rolling waves, sending the tattooed otter circling lazily about her navel.

Her hips rolled into figure eights as she moved away from the man, bringing the rest of those assembled back into her audience. Bare shoulders shimmied beneath hair and veil as her hips undulated, accentuating her walk as she crossed the span of the room. At the apex of each turn, her waist contracted, pulling her hips up and dropping them sharply to the chime of coins.

The movements were a visual extension of the music, sharp and fast and then slow and smooth. The climax of the song was so unrelenting that Nessani was a blur, spinning with her arms extended, her head circling to enhance the effect, though it left her dizzy with excitement. Her hair and veils lashed out about her, tongues of flame and dark that licked at her.

And then the music stopped. It was a sudden emptiness that left the body craving more and in the void, Nessani stood silently, her chest heaving from the exertion of her dance and sweat beading at her brow. Her head was down, her face covered by veil and hair. The blood was rushing to her head, roaring in her ears so that she couldn’t hear the reaction, either good or bad, to her performance. She only became vaguely aware of someone at her elbow, leading her off the floor as the musicians began to play a new song and the dancers that she had trained with moved in to fill her place.