This is Dominique’s last night dancing in the window at the Bourbon
Cowboy. They will know at the end of her shift that she is off to
Istanbul tomorrow to be a nanny. It is a shame that there will be no
dancing involved, but at least it is a proper job, and she will see
some of the world. Maybe she can teach her wards to dance the old
dances that raise the spirits. Or maybe that will not be allowed
there.
Dominique makes the most of it, hamming it up for fat tourists from
the midwest who take pictures with her. It will be a month before she
gets her first salary pack in Istanbul. She needs pocket money to last
her. She dreams of shopping for spices in the Bazaar and for little
trinkets to send to her half-sister now in foster care.
Dominique has heard that in Turkey you can buy glass amulets to stave
off the evil eye. She can’t imagine a place more steeped in
superstition than the French Quarter where she has lived out most of
her 21 years. She will take a protection candle and a Gris Gris bag
just in case.
But, really, Voodoo has become so cliche. A trick she may do for the
tourists. She has never killed a chicken or spat blood. She has only
let the spirits mount her once. It made her sick for a week during
which time her mother mopped her forehead with herb infused rags, never
believing that the Loa had truly left her.
And, it is true. Sometimes when she dances in the window at the
Bourbon Cowboy, she can feel it try to mount her again. A clawing of
gooseflesh up her back, a lightness in the head, a momentary confusion
and maybe a bit of lost time. All of this will go away, she thinks,
when she can stare into those eye-shaped, clear blue Nazars in the
heat of the Istanbul Bazaar.
