Have you ever seen Manna dancing in the lamplight filtering in from the street, have you ever seen her after lovemaking when the world becomes silent and a breath takes a rest at the edge of the pillow?
She is standing, standing alone. She is not moving, just waiting until her numbness makes objects rise, the objects ask her for a
dance, the snotty paper tissues scattered around in the room, the clothes carelessly thrown on the ground. Books on the shelves are sighing, the shelves start throbbing to the rythm of their sighs and the tape-recorder is playing a King Crimson song. In spite of the music you can feel this is silence. Only Andrew is speaking.
It should be cut right here, Manna''s speaking in a slightly wicked tone, but still joking as if even she could not take it serious or could not be brave enough to take it serious what she would like to do. She is just caressing Andrew''s neck, gently moving her index finger along the same line again and again. You fool, I was only joking, she laughs, but she becomes frightened when next morning after lovemaking she notices a red line on Andrew''s neck, exactly where she drew it with her finger, where she marked the line of the cut. There''s the wound now!, my Lord!, she shouts, this is the power of words, just wait, let me kiss it, it may disappear! But Andrew is not very keen on offering his neck again. Cool down, I''m only giving a tender kiss and the line starts slowly vanishing by the kiss, the line which was as red as allergic rash.
Gosh! He would even let his throat be cut for me, Manna startled. But why do I want to do it? The throat...a special organ for speaking...I don''t want him to talk...to tell, to say to anybody, to talk about what he has seen, he has seen me dancing. When he first stepped out of my flat, then I wished, I wish we couldn''t live any longer, we could not live any days any more, at least, he should die, never again with anybody, never again.
Manna remembers that it had come into her mind when she entered the bathrooom. She took off her panties and sat down on the loo. As she was sitting there, she was asking for his death, not even she could explain why she had such a lame idea. And why now?,she asked herself. Maybe because one can be so dependant, helpless and defenceless here, some public loos have got a strange atmosphere where the Ladies'' and Gents'' parts open into a common space. Manna recently was at a similar place, a friend with whom she was talking to at that public place wanted to go to the loo, she followed him in a short time because she also had to pee as the man did. Every tiny,little noise, dripping, sighing, moaning could have been heard and Manna stopped there, at the end she only washed her hands she did not want to be committed. She would have felt provocative to pee then and there. For she heard the man being there and sitting in one of the boxes. She kept her fingers crossed, for she did not want him to know that she was standing there on the other side.
Only beautiful women can dance, you can only spy on beauty. Only those can dance whom others love to watch. And if women dance to anyone, it means they noticed his presence.
(The author''s note: This is my second short story ever published and it brought me the greatest succes in the first and most important weekly litterature and art newspaper, Élet és Irodalom, in Hungary in 1991. It is the unique and original, first version of the introductory scene in the movie Basic Instinct directed by Paul Verhoeven. The movie consists another three short stories that are published with several others later in 1993 by Kalligram. In fact, we think that the script of Basic Instinct is a theft, a plagiarism. I defend myself by publishing this controversial scene in English and by saying that it does not contain any harmful and violent crime scenes. I believe that a writer is always must be a judge.)
További ismertetés a következőről Manna''s Dance