Fools' Gold Read Online Free PDF Page B

toward and away from each other, then tapped whoever would be next and sat down. Visitors were always chosen first, but when Finn and Ellen and the reverend walked in they were, nevertheless, surprised to see Henriette dancing opposite Phil’s wife and with two of the men from the Port Clarence group. The piano could still be heard but the dancers were not taking their rhythm from it. Rather, the audience clapped out the rhythm and the tempo for them.
    Henriette danced with a loose grin on her face. While the others moved in and out to the constant clapping, she did a kind of hop, coming down on both feet and then turning all the way around and hopping back. Seeing her embarrassed Ellen, but before she could react Henriette sat down and Ellen herself was pushed into the circle and was joined by Finn, the reverend, and by another of Phil’s many sisters. Ellen stood stiff-backed for a moment but found that made her more self-conscious than dancing. She hopped as briefly as she could, trying to follow the woman across from her. She looked sideways, hoping to glare at Finn, if she could catch his eye, but he wasn’t looking at her. Rather he leapt high into the air and came down shouting. And the reverend danced lightly and with skill. No one noticed Ellen’s discomfort.
    They danced until there was a break in the clapping, then chose others to take their places. Ellen chose the person nearest her and quickly sat down where that person had been. She was deeply embarrassed and watched everyone to see if they perceived it. She sat with her back to the wall, thank God not over where Finn was with his back to the howling wind. It was the first time she had ever danced, the very first. Ellen watched the others but after a while began to relax and saw herself up there dancing as well as they did. She pictured her entire Irish family watching her dance and frowning. She saw them sitting in the circle, clapping for her, and she saw herself moving her body in front of them, sometimes holding up the hem of her skirt, sometimes swishing it back and forth. She imagined her father looking at her ankles and getting angry, so she tapped him on the head and sat in his place while he jerked around up there, his hips and knees working like those of a puppet. Oh, he would frown. Ellen clapped for her father and smiled as he danced grotesquely around. She’d make him dance in his pub; if he weren’t careful she’d make him dance in the street!
    Ellen opened her eyes to the Eskimo dancers and watched as another and another group began. Everyone had to dance. Everyone would. Ellen saw Henriette across from her clapping and grinning. She saw Finn and the reverend, and she saw herself again. It was easy. She closed her eyes and there was her father, still bounding about, sweating from the exertion of it all. He pumped his legs and moved about the room and jumped and turned and twisted. How long would he hold up? she wondered. He tried several times to tap his way out of it but the people around him pulled back, moving their heads just out of his reach.
    Ellen was shocked that she’d let her own father work himself so. She knew he wasn’t in the best of health. Still she watched. Heel toe, heel toe, his black boots kicked and shuffled. Ellen clapped on steadily, now thinking of home, now watching the Eskimos. Across from her Finn had fallen away into the night. She could see him standing dimly back there, next to that feathered hut. He put his ear to it, then shouted, then listened. He was trying to make himself understood, trying hard to hear the voice of the virgin through the howls of the storm and over the general cacophony of the night.
    The storm made it seem late, and darkness made everyone cold and reminded them of winter. Soon the fronts of the lean-tos began blinking shut like eyes, the candles and kerosene lamps folding under pelt doors. Ellen and Henriette walked quickly through the storm following the