Dark Waltz

Recently I was listening to the album “Pure” by Hayley Westenra, which contains several inspirational songs (and I recommend it highly). One track was just a little bit dark, and suggested the following fantasy and riddle. Because of all the up-beat songs on the album, the sombre mood didn’t last, and so it’s a very short little piece...

We are the lucky ones
We shine like a thousand suns
When all of the colour runs together

I met Natasha in Paris. Somebody once said that Paris was a woman’s town, and she certainly seemed to have the city at her feet. Everyone around her seemed captivated by her flawless face, and her midnight-dark hair. I, for one, was lost the moment I saw her.

It was in the Musée d‘Orsay one Thursday evening. Once a railway station, the Musée d‘Orsay the now holds some of the greatest works by the Impressionist masters of light and colour. Natasha was absorbed in an enormous plaster sculpture by Rodin, with an intensity that was almost frightening. I had been fortunate enough to have seen a version of the sculpture in bronze back home in California, and we had a lengthy conversation about the various figures that form part of the composition. She seemed to know them all: not just famous images like “The Thinker”, but also obscure references to ancient Roman authors like Ovid. I felt unusually fortunate to have enjoyed a pleasant evening with such a beautiful and educated woman, but of course I never expected to meet her again.

I'll keep you company
In one glorious harmony
Waltzing with destiny forever

I did, though. Somehow we seemed to favour the same nightclubs, although Natasha invariably arrived just as I was about to leave. She always had a young man with her, but I was still able to dance with her once or twice.

Natasha was a superb dancer: she danced every style as if she had spent a lifetime perfecting it. I was amazed that her young men wouldn’t want a repeat performance, but they seemed to vanish from sight, and whenever I saw her, it was with somebody else.

Sacred geometry
Where movement is poetry
Visions of you and me forever

After some time, I had to leave France on urgent business. On returning to Paris, I was too occupied to visit nightclubs, but one Wednesday after work I relaxed by paying a short visit to the Louvre, and there she was again. This time it was the “Winged Victory” that she was absorbed in as if it was an old friend.

Natasha seemed somehow stronger than at our first meeting, and when we left the museum we walked for several hours through the Louvre courtyards and around the great glass pyramid. We spoke for several hours about the passion for art that we both seemed to share. It turned out that she was at the Louvre to say goodbye, and was planning to return to her family in Eastern Europe. Her French was so perfect that I had taken her for a local, but in fact she was as much a visitor as I was. We said farewell to each other at the pyramid, and I walked slowly and thoughtfully back along the river alone.

Dance me into the night
Underneath the full moon shining so bright
Turning me into the light

I met Natasha only once more. This time I was the one saying goodbye to Paris, standing on one of the bridges over the Seine, and staring at the moon’s reflection in the river. A familiar voice interrupted my reverie, and as I turned around, there she was. I could hardly refuse her invitation to visit a Paris nightclub one last time, but when she kissed me goodbye we were beside the river again. We had never kissed before, and I was surprised by how passionate she was.

I flew back home the next day. The transition seems to have made me a little depressed. I seem to spend the most of the day sleeping, I don’t quite have the enthusiasm for a good dinner that I used to have, and I don’t spend time at the beach anymore. I can’t forget Natasha, of course, but I think it’s more than that: meeting her changed me in some way. I’m just not quite sure how...