not know that holding out a hand was a signal for offering help. I thought holding out a hand was a signal for asking help. Maybe it only goes with “here.”
“Do you want to fence, Lou?” Marjory asks me.
“Yes,” I say. I can feel my face getting hot. I put my mask on and pick up my épée. “Do you want to use épée and dagger?”
“Sure,” Marjory says. She puts her mask on and I cannot see her face, only the gleam of her eyes and her teeth when she speaks. I can see the shape of her under the fencing jacket, though. I would like to touch that shape, but that is not appropriate. Only boyfriends with their girlfriends.
Marjory salutes. She has a simpler pattern than Tom’s and I could make a touch, but then it would be over. I parry, thrust short, parry again. When our blades touch, I can feel her hand through the connection; we are touching without touching. She circles, reverses, moves back and forth, and I move with her. It is like some kinds of dance, a pattern of movement, except for not having music. I sort through the music I remember, trying to find the right music for this dance. It gives me a strange feeling to match my pattern to hers, not to defeat her but just to feel that connection, that touch-and-touch of blades to hands and back.
Paganini. The First Violin Concerto in D Major, Opus 6, the third movement. It is not exactly right, but it is closer than anything else I can think of. Stately but quick, with the little breaks where Marjory does not keep an exact rhythm changing directions. In my mind, I speed up or slow the music to stay with our movements.
I wonder what Marjory hears. I wonder if she can hear the music I hear. If we were both thinking of the same music, would we hear it the same way? Would we be in phase or out? I hear the sounds as color on dark; she might hear the sounds as dark lines on light, as music is printed.
If we put the two together, would they cancel out sight, dark on light and light on dark?Or…
Marjory’s touch breaks the chain of thought. “Good,” I say, and step back. She nods, and we salute again.
I read something once where thinking was described as light and not thinking as dark. I am thinking about other things while we fence, and Marjory was faster to make a touch than I was. So if she is not thinking about other things, did this not-thinking make her faster, and is that dark faster than the light of my not-thinking?
I do not know what the speed of thought is. I do not know if the speed of thought is the same for everyone. Is it thinking faster or thinking further that makes different thinking different?
The violin rises up in a spiraling pattern and Marjory’s pattern falls apart and I sweep forward in the dance that is now a solo dance and make my touch on her.
“Good,” she says, and steps back. Her body is moving with the deep breaths she’s taking. “You wore me out, Lou; that was a long one.”
“How about me?”Simon says. I would like to be with Marjory more, but I liked fencing Simon before and want to do that, too.
This time the music starts when we do, different music. Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy … perfect for the feline prowl that is Simon circling me, looking for an opening, and for my intense concentration. I never thought I could dance before—it was a social thing, and I always got stiff and clumsy. Now—with a blade in hand—it feels right to move to the internal music.
Simon is better than I am, but it does not bother me. I am eager to see what he can do, what I can do.
He gets a touch, another one, but then I get another one on him. “Best of five?” he asks. I nod, breathless. This time neither of us gets a touch right away; this time we fight on and on, until I finally make another touch, more by luck than skill. We are even now. The others are quiet, watching. I can feel their interest, a warm space on my back as I circle. Forward, sideways, around, back. Simon knows and counters every move I make; I am just able to counter his. Finally he does something I do not