break in their filming before what was, Sirena told me later, the final take. She wanted—and ultimately she got—seven perfect minutes of unbroken spinning, her dervish—on hire, or a volunteer, from the local Sufi temple—twirling without cease, without stumbling, in her meditative trance, seven magical minutes. She got these minutes—Sirena never doubted that she would, even though it took almost seven hours for her to be satisfied.
When they broke for Thai food, Sirena, jolly, and public—masked!—in a way I’d never before seen, introduced me around. The cameraman was called Langley. He had a goofy manner, and was older than I’d thought, though not as old as me. Marlene seemed at first curious, at least curious enough to paste on a big smile; and then when she found out I taught elementary school, her eyes, like a lizard’s, hooded over, and she retreated into her pad thai. Sana, meanwhile, the Sufi—originally named Carolina and the rebellious daughter of Puerto Rican Catholics—stood to one side, daintily eating slices of papaya dipped in lime juice, miraculously without spilling even a drop upon her pristine garments. She produced, from within her folds, a linen handkerchief, and carefully wiped her lips and her fingers when she was done. Radiant, she barely spoke: it was, for her, a spiritual event.
This was not obviously so for Sirena: “Where’ve you been, you crazy girl, these past days?” she asked, without waiting for a reply. “You’ve missed all the excitements! It’s too bad—we’ve had such adventures. And this is the last.” She clapped her hands. “This is the centerpiece.” She turned to the beatific woman in white: “And Sana is our star!” Sirena crunched on a tiny spring roll. “But all of them have been fantastic. The little girl, the older woman—wasn’t she extraordinary, Marlene? Marlene’s been my right hand, the person to steady me—because photography, still pictures, up to now, is not so much my thing—video, but not so much the photographs.” She chewed, and even that seemed to me theatrical. “But the pictures, they’ve come out well, no? Marlene is so brilliant a photographer, it’s almost shaming to ask for your opinion”—she put her hand on Marlene’s arm in that way that I’d thought was for me—“but you were so kind as to say”—she was talking to Marlene while telling me the story—“that you thought they were good—”
“I told you, sweetie, they’re phenomenal. You know that.” And Marlene then said, as if she’d turned to look at me, but without turning at all, “She’s so full of false modesty, this one! This installation will make her name.”
“Can you come tomorrow afternoon?” Sirena asked me, fixing me properly with her gaze at last, and for the only time that evening. “I’ll show you the images—now, with the computer, it’s all right here—but you’ll say whether you agree. For the little girl, Marlene and I have different ideas.”
“She wants to have the head show, the chin and the mouth, for the expression,” said Marlene, still looking at Sirena rather than at me. “But I think it’s better without the mouth. Because then for the young woman you have the mouth, and for the middle-aged woman—”
“Don’t call her that,” said Sirena, laughing. “She’s the same age as we are!”
“And we, my darling Sirena”—somehow she rolled the “r” the way I’d always wanted to—“are also middle-aged. Be proud of it!” But surely, I thought, looking at Marlene, at the impression she gave that her meager flesh pulled wearily away from the bone—surely this woman wasn’t the same age as Sirena? Sirena wasn’t nearly so old. “Anyway, our contemporary, we see her mouth and nose, maybe even the bottom of her eyes, and then—”
“Yes, yes,” Sirena interrupted, “Nora knows: then we see all of her, of our wise woman. As she sees all of herself. Finally. Nora knows this already. We’ve talked about it.”
“Many times,” I murmured. It seemed to me I’d suggested it. The Thai feast was winding down, and Sana the refulgent Sufi had excused herself to go to the bathroom. Even mystics needed to pee. I wondered how she’d negotiate the grimy artists’ bathroom in her voluminous white skirt; but when she returned, she looked pristine as ever.
Needless to say, there was no question of my working on Edie or Alice. And there was no question that Sirena might have missed me: she’d been surrounded by disciples and helpers and colleagues, above all by Marlene—whose work, I remembered Sirena telling me, had been included in a group show at