Now Archy was pissed. He folded his arms and put on his best entitled-rich-guy expression. I had to admit it was pretty impressive. “No one is going with you, little man. The police commissioner had dinner with us last week. I believe he will have something to say about this ridiculous trespass on our private party!”
There were a few muffled noises of assent from the crowd. Some of the dancers crept down from the dressing room to watch. They hovered next to the stage, a glittering bonfire of bright fabric in the suddenly somber space. Comstock seemed to realize he was losing ground, but he stood firm.
“I have no beef with you, sir, as long as you clear off. But I must insist that you produce Lady Asenath, who authored this abominable performance. I have a warrant for her arrest!” Next to him, Elliot waved a piece of paper and sneered at me. I wondered how much he remembered of the night he eavesdropped on us. Comstock raised his voice again. “WHERE IS LADY ASENATH?”
My heart was pounding. What should we do?
That’s when Aseel stepped forward. She’d changed into a ball gown of pale yellow silk with puffed sleeves and a wide sash. Her skin glowed a rich brown in the chandeliers’ candlelight. “I AM LADY ASENATH.”
What the hell was she doing? Sending Aseel to jail wasn’t part of our plan. Then something unexpected happened. Mademoiselle Asenath broke away from me onstage to stand next to Aseel. “NO. I AM LADY ASENATH.”
And then more came forward, all the various Lady Asenaths raising their arms and yelling her name. “I AM LADY ASENATH! I AM!”
Suddenly, a society lady in the audience jumped on her chair and joined in. “I AM LADY ASENATH! ARREST ME!” Another lurched tipsily onto her chair, aided by a gentleman friend. “I AM LADY ASENATH!”
That’s when I noticed Sol at the edge of the room, smoking his cigar, looking straight at me. He winked and tapped his temple with a finger, reminding me of what he’d said last year during the Expo: You change a man’s mind by showing him a good time. Maybe he’d hit upon an odd, unknown corollary to the Collective Action hypothesis. The people in this room had come here looking for fun or for titillation or for justice, and maybe it was all right that we didn’t see the same truth when we looked at the stage. So what if these soused men on their thrones didn’t notice the connection between hoochie coochie dancers and women’s reproductive freedom? It didn’t matter. Because we all agreed on one thing. We were in this together.
“I AM LADY ASENATH!” I yelled from the stage. A reckless, strange solidarity gripped the ballroom, and more voices spoke her name. One of the judges scrambled up next to me and howled in a practiced falsetto, “I AM LADY ASENATH AND I’M A PERFECT TEN!”
Archy couldn’t have been more thrilled. This would be all over the gossip pages tomorrow. Like a twenty-first-century reality TV star, he thirsted for the fame and party invites that came with his scandalous reputation. “I guess you’ll have to arrest all of us, then,” he said loudly. “I’m sure the police commissioner will be happy to hear about that.”
Comstock looked at Elliot, and then at the police officers. “This isn’t over. I’m going to bring charges.”
“I welcome your charges.” Archy glowered. “I can’t wait to bankrupt you in court.”
My headache was gone and I felt intoxicated in every part of my body. Archy was doing far more than we’d ever hoped he would—and so were his glitter trash uptown friends. For a triumphant second, I allowed myself to imagine history emerging from this moment in a perfect, uncomplicated arc. The Four Hundred’s appetite for sexy entertainment would challenge the obscenity laws that bore Comstock’s name. As he lost his grip on the mail, information about birth control and abortion would circulate freely again. The hoochie coochie dancers’ edit was what we’d needed all along.
I looked at Morehshin, who was grinning fiercely. Maybe, centuries from now, her queens were becoming people.
Sunday morning’s society pages were full of salacious drawings and exaggerated accounts of the evening. Archy’s “bash” was duly condemned as racy and decadent, but Comstock emerged as the evening’s biggest gossip target. The papers satirized everything about him, from his threadbare suit to his accent. His morals were absurd; they belonged to an era before the invention of electricity. George Bernard Shaw, a snarky British theater critic, made oblique reference to the scandal in a widely republished essay about how “Comstockery” was ruining American culture. Morehshin was excited to see the true slaughter of Comstock’s reputation was under way. Sol and Archy gave everybody big tips, including to the dancers who hadn’t won the prize.
In the light of day, I still felt sure we’d reached a transition point. This wasn’t an “angry mob” protesting Comstock’s moral cleansing campaign. It was New York’s best and richest, simply trying to have a good time. We’d driven a wedge between the Four Hundred and the moralist who depended on them.
Of course, I might never know if I was right about the eventual outcome of last night’s blowup. That would require me to get back to 2022. And I couldn’t do that until Morehshin and I tapped back millions of years to deal with the men who were still trying to rob us of our history.
I realized this might be the last time we would see Aseel, and I was sorry to say goodbye. Hungover but happy, we met in the hotel dining room for a late breakfast of eggs, rolls, and various gelatinous meats beloved in this era. Morehshin poured a small amount of coffee into her cup from the carafe on our table and stared at it.
“You going to drink that?” Aseel was amused.
I tried to explain. “People don’t drink coffee in her time.”
“Some people do.” Morehshin frowned. Then sipped. “Ugh, this is bad. Maybe some rules don’t need breaking.”
We laughed and I noticed that Aseel didn’t seem as angry as she used to. Running a shop suited her, and she was publishing a lot of music that came from traditions outside the usual European oompa crap. “What are your plans for the Independent Music Company?” I asked.
“Sol and I talked last night, after everybody left. We’re making a tidy profit with our sheet music, and he wants me to start organizing more events like this one back in Chicago.” She got a faraway look on her face. “We could bring back some of the Midway dancers, like Salina, and put on shows in the dance hall next door. A bunch of venues are opening up on Wabash.”
“That sounds fantastic! The Algerian Village lives on!”
She nodded. “I got a big raise, too. I can buy a house.”
Morehshin talked around the bacon in her mouth. “That’s good. A house is important. My sisters have a saying: If you have property, you can’t be property.”
Aseel gave us both a quizzical look. “I’m not sure that’s true, but I definitely feel more secure.”
We talked about where she might move, and how Sol was going to let her take charge of hiring, and then finally it was time for us to go. Aseel took the train back to Chicago while we headed to the pier. We had a long trip ahead.
When we arrived at Raqmu, the news was waiting for us in tidy piles at the inn in the scholars’ neighborhood. Literati and society types had taken up the “Comstockery” meme with zeal. It came to mean anything unfashionable, addle-brained, or dull. Comstock’s raid had also cost him some very rich patrons, who quietly distanced themselves from his crusade. When he was harassing abortionists, smutty postcard peddlers, and low-class theaters, they considered it their duty to support him. But not when he tried to smear the reputations of Archy and the other lads, who were only having a bit of fun. Comstock’s operation had always been on a shoestring budget, and now he had fewer resources than ever. If he wanted to continue his legal battles over obscene materials, he couldn’t afford to sustain his regular busts in the street.