Rooftop Access
In this excerpt from the unpublished novel manuscript A Theory of Body, Pennie follows Esme onto a Brooklyn rooftop, where wine, music, and a Serbian folk dance begin to loosen the careful boundaries between thought, desire, and the body.
“Come. Let’s finish our brandy and go to the roof. I’ll teach you to dance the Moravac, maybe later the Užičko kolo, as we do at home.”
She drained her glass and motioned for me to do the same.
Thinking it was probably another mistake in an evening already full of them, I drained my snifter.
She laughed, kissed me again, her lips brushing mine, and took my hand. “Leave your glass here,” she said. “On the roof, we have mugs for wine and music for the soul.”
Getting onto the roof was scary, and squeezing out the window and climbing the rickety fire escape felt like a daring adventure, especially since I was a little drunk. Esme laughed at my hesitation. But once I was on the roof, I was exhilarated. The moon was high, and I could see its reflection glinting on the East River’s surface. From this vantage point, the city’s glow was fierce, and Brooklyn, as much of it as I could see, looked like a tapestry of light and shadow.
I recognized the music playing on the boombox as an Arvo Pärt composition, a sophisticated choice, though a bit too spare for my taste. Anselm and Miklós were huddled under a tent pitched next to the chimney, and I could still smell the cannabis in the air. Miklós smoked a cigarette while Anselm sipped from a chipped coffee mug.
“Ladies,” he said. “Miklós and I’ll go downstairs while the fire dies down a bit, unless you think it already has.”
Esme laughed. “You’re always so worried about fire, mišu! But yes, it was a little high when we left, so it’s probably a good idea.”
We watched as Anselm and Miklós descended the fire escape more gracefully than I’d climbed it. Esme made me nervous and somehow girlish, alone with her on the roof. I couldn’t make sense of my own moods. She poured wine into two cups, handed me one, then rummaged around in the tent on all fours. I looked away until she emerged with a cassette tape.
“It’s still hard to find CDs of this music in New York,” she said, sliding the cassette into the deck. “So the quality isn’t the best. But for us,” she smiled broadly, “it’ll be more than enough.”
The music began, a tinny, scratchy accordion carrying a relentless rhythm that lifted into the Brooklyn night. I found it compelling and, again, exotic. Esme tapped her foot and clapped softly in time.
“Listen, draga,” she said. “Listen to what the music wants you to do.”
I opened myself to it, felt it in my body, less a pull than a push. I tapped my foot, then swayed tentatively in time with the pulsing bellows.
“Yes, yes,” she said. “That’s the rhythm,” nodding now, clapping louder.
“Good! Watch now. Watch my feet. Step the right foot to the right. Now the left foot is behind the right. Step the right foot to the right. Then step the left foot in front.”
I watched, feeling the rhythm but still trailing behind it. Why had I agreed to this?
“Okay, now, syncopated steps in place. Right, left, right.” Her feet moved faster. “Now the same as before, but opposite.”
She came to me, took my hand, and said, smiling, “Now, mila moja, we dance. The sequence repeats. That’s all.”
I tried to follow her feet, but my body lagged behind the instruction, hesitating at precisely the wrong moments. I stepped late, thinking too much, then too early, my weight shifting awkwardly as the roof’s gravel bit through the thin soles of my shoes. The rhythm insisted, indifferent to my confusion. I laughed, embarrassed, and stumbled.
“Sorry!”
Esme tightened her grip on my hand, pulling me into the pattern. “No, no,” she said, amused rather than correcting. “Don’t apologize. Just listen.” She brought her free hand to my waist, warm and firm, guiding my torso rather than my feet. “The dance isn’t here,” she said, touching my head lightly with one finger. “It’s here.” Her palm pressed intimately, just below my breasts. “You must let it carry you.”
The music went on, the accordion relentless, circular, refusing resolution. I stopped trying to remember the steps and let my body answer imperfectly. My movements grew larger and less precise as I turned too far and then corrected. I felt clumsy and exposed, but my body still answered her in movement and heat. Esme laughed again, delighted now, and drew closer, her body brushing mine as she demonstrated the steps once more, slower and more exaggerated.
“Good,” she said. “You feel it now.”
I did, and what I felt was heat from the dancing and the wine, from the way her breath grazed my cheek as she leaned in to watch my feet. The city fell away. The moon’s reflection on the river became peripheral, the skyline a distant theater set. Only the rhythm, the scrape of gravel, the accordion’s wheeze, and Esme’s steady presence remained, coaxing rather than commanding.
At some point, she let go of my hand, and I panicked, losing the pattern. She clapped once, sharply, and laughed. “Again,” she said. “From the beginning.” She took both my hands this time, and we faced each other, moving as in a loose mirror. Our steps no longer matched exactly, but they spoke to each other, a call-and-response of imbalance and recovery.
“You see?” she said. “It’s not about perfection. It’s about staying in motion.”
I smiled, unable to speak. Sweat cooled at the base of my neck as the breeze cut across the roof. The music surged, faster now, and Esme spun, then stopped directly in front of me in a precise flourish. We stood very close, almost touching, the dance suspended but not finished. She reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, an absent, intimate gesture, and I hoped she would lean in and kiss me again. I was glad to be breathing hard from the dance.
“That’s enough for now.”
The music continued as I stood there, flushed and unsteady, feeling my heart beating and the strange lightness in my limbs. Esme stepped away to turn down the volume, then returned with the cups, refilling mine without asking. We sat on the low parapet wall, the stone cold even through my coat, our knees angled toward one another.
Below us, a siren wailed and then faded. Above, the moon slid behind a veil of clouds.
“You did well,” she said, sipping her wine. “Your body listens, even when you don’t trust it.”
