"I glanced at Kai. He was intent on the drums’ conversation. I tried to follow. Just as I thought I found the pattern with my primitive Western sense of rhythm, it flowed into something other, and more hypnotic. A phrase from the high singing drums rang out. A chorus of throaty midrange drums answered. Below these droned a deep heartbeat drum. It was not content to keep time, but happily jumped in with unexpected thunder. The yala, its voice unearthly and soulful, kept its poignant commentary, exuberant for a turn, then mournful, then lyrical again. The flutes rose and fell, vanished and re-entered in tight harmony as if their voices were chained together. All these rose above the chattering of the bead rattles gamely carried by the young children who mimicked the grown-ups in a tight orbit around the musicians.
I let go. I leapt in with the dark women as they swept near. I was barefoot with them. They welcomed me with knowing laughter. It felt like we were swimming inside the drums. My Rizha friends, completely free from puritan inhibitions, moved from the hips, swinging and thrusting. After a few moments, my foxtrot steps dissolved, then my culture fell away and I was not American, not Rizha, but purely woman, barefoot, dancing.
As the women flowed with the rhythm, the men stomped to the beat. Together we were the music in motion. We whistled and shouted fiercely if the men came near to touching, then surged in pursuit as they howled and pounded away.
The first turn around the plaza, I saw Kai still standing at the head of the alley. The next time around he was gone. I feared for a moment he must have left me. But the tempo rose and then there was nothing but dance.
I fell into the percussive embrace. The women moved their arms like snakes or swept them down as if caressing a man’s chest. I heard hissing and little kissing sounds all around me. Then a defiant scream swept through us. Flying hair brushed my face.
On a cue I felt but didn’t hear, the women lifted their arms and the men poured in among us. Now there was a single drum, fast and fierce, building an unbearable tension as we all held our ground.
Flutes called out, and the yala’s harmonies tumbled through the crowd. All at once and not a moment too soon, the drums flew into a frenzy.
Spinning and weaving in pairs, in groups, in lines and in circles, we poured around the plaza. We circled in chorus like a flock of birds dipping and weaving in the wind. I was caught up in the center. I clapped with the children. I whirled with the women. I stomped with the men. I smelled perfume and sweat. We flew around the plaza again.
Abruptly, Kai stood before me, drenched in sweat. It seemed he didn’t recognize me. Trance-like and fluid, he was dancing with every woman on the plaza at once. Then our eyes met. He reached out his hand, nearly but not touching, and followed the contours of my swaying body. He danced backwards, pouring around others, keeping his gaze locked on me. We circled the plaza. His feet were everywhere with the racing drums. He was liquid. He was magnificent. Other dancers began to notice, and more, until Kai spun around the plaza in a space of his own, with all the dancers pulled along as if by gravity. I followed like a moon.
I don’t know how long this went on. I remember at some point the musicians ran through three false endings, built to a fierce crescendo, and finally slammed to a precise and shocking silence. Most of the dancers staggered around aimlessly for several minutes. They whistled and laughed with that ineffable satisfaction only the wild communion of music affords. Everyone acknowledged Kai with respect, and raised their eyebrows at me, laughing about what an inspiration I was. I laughed too.
There were line dances and circle dances. There were jugs of cool mint tea. There were oranges and herb cakes and a jar of horrible, potent liquor. There was much merriment at my expense when I took a sip and spat it out, gasping. Haughty young men boasted, earning taunts from their defiant women.
The two of us eventually left the plaza, hearing the music pick up again behind us. Without a word, we walked down to the river. Shrouded by the fog, the Kyornin’s boat waited for us. The mist wrapped the garden in cool stillness. We tacitly chose the silver gazebo. Kai didn’t wait to get all my clothes off before pulling me into the pillows. Beneath him, my body recalled the dance. Soon after our loving, still without a spoken word between us, he fell asleep in my arms."
~ G. L. Kay
The Island Gardens of Takau