Excerpt of The Belly Dancer by DeAnna Cameron

Dora Chambers entered the Egyptian Theatre behind the crowd of gritty laborers and pale office clerks, the older gentlemen and boys barely of an age to shave. The masculine scents of their hair pomade and Ivory- soaped skin mingled with the fragrance of the tendrils of smoke curling from brass burners set along the stage. She raised her handkerchief to her nose.

“Are you sure you’re up to this, dear?” Agnes Richmond placed a grandmotherly hand on Dora’s shoulder and leaned closer to be heard over the high- pitched whine of a horn.

“Of course, she’s up to it,” muttered Geraldine Forrest as the three settled along the back of the standing room gallery behind the rows of filled seats. She brushed at the sleeves of her tailored wool jacket and, for the third time since they’d arrived, adjusted the wide- brimmed hat sitting atop her sweep of golden hair. “I’m sure she’d do anything to keep her new husband happy.”

“Yes, of course,” the older woman said. “You must have felt exactly the same about Mr. Forrest, God rest his soul.” She took Dora’s gloved hands in her own. “It doesn’t appear those women intend to follow through with their threat after all. It’s quite a relief, really. I understand their concern, but frankly, the Columbian Exposition hardly needs the trouble.”

A commotion at the entrance interrupted her, and the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd in the cavernous hall pressed back, nearly sweeping Dora off her feet. When she righted herself, a stream of women in black wool frocks and simple hats had cleaved its way down the main aisle and toward the stage. Each held a sign in her grip with letters still dripping with wet paint: “Send the foreign filth home,” “Propriety before profits,” and “Close the belly dance theater now.” Their shouting drowned out the music until it stopped altogether.

“Move back, dear, out of the way now.” Mrs. Richmond urged Dora toward the rear of the gallery, though everyone around them pushed toward the door.

Dora followed instructions, and huddled with Mrs. Richmond and Mrs. Forrest at the back of the emptying theater. Perspiration dampened Dora’s forehead and two droplets slid down the crevice of her back where the corset was pulled the tightest. She dabbed at the trickle but couldn’t reach it through the layers of linen and whalebone, cotton and wool.

On the stage, she saw several dancers huddled together as well.

“That’s enough, that’s enough now. Clear out.” A uniformed man pushed his way inside and was waving his hands over his head in a call for order. Behind him stood another dozen uniformed men, poised to act.

“We won’t leave until this den of vice is closed down,” cried a dour, elderly woman who emerged from the pack to stare down the officer. “We will not allow it to defile our city any longer!”

“You’ve been warned, madam. We’ll arrest anyone who disrupts this theater’s lawful operation.” “Is it lawful for these women to fl aunt themselves in this vulgar manner? Is it lawful for these men to witness this obscene display?”

The woman adjusted the glasses on her nose in a way that made her look down on the officer though he towered over her.

“Not for me to say, ma’am. Grievances should be taken up with the Fair directors. Now you and your sisters here have two minutes to disperse.” He made a show of pulling out his pocket watch and checking its face.

The grim- faced woman turned to the stage, where the dancers still stood against the back wall. “You have not heard the last of this,” she hollered. “We will rid this Fair of your filth.” Then she turned and with a swipe of her hand signaled her fellow protesters to follow her out.

The officers followed behind, leaving only the performers, Dora, Mrs. Richmond, and Mrs. Forrest.

“That was the Society for the Suppression of Vice?” Dora asked, tucking a stray strand of her black hair behind her ear beneath her straw boater and gripping her parasol more tightly, still unaccustomed to its constant presence. “It’s just a group of ladies. What harm could they possibly do?”

“Never underestimate a group of ladies, my dear,” Mrs. Richmond admonished. “Take our Board of Lady Managers. The directors themselves put their trust in us to sort out this mess, and I for one am proud to say it is our Lady Managers’ privilege to contribute to the Fair’s success. Remember, if this World’s Fair succeeds, Chicago succeeds. The opportunities will be endless.”

“Chicago is full of opportunities, isn’t it?” Dora liked the sound of it. It’s what Charles had said on their wedding day two months ago in New Orleans, when she’d packed her dresses and twenty years of memories into a steamer trunk, ready to start a new life eight hundred miles away. “The past is irrelevant in Chicago,” he’d whispered in her ear as they stood at the steamship bow, waving to strangers and feeling the rumble of the engine choke smoke into the sky as it prepared to leave the only home she’d ever known.