He gave me a sly smile. “Don’t worry. I may have power, but I can’t just take over a person’s body once and for all. An agreement is required for that. I can’t do it unless both parties agree. You don’t want your body permanently taken over, do you?”

“No, of course not,” I said with a shiver.

“And I don’t want to help you get your girl without any kind of compensation.” The dwarf raised a finger. “But I’ll do it on one condition. It’s not such a difficult condition, but it is a condition nonetheless.”

“What is it?”

“I get into your body. We go to the dance hall. You ask her to join you and you captivate her with your dancing. Then you take her. But you’re not allowed to say a word from beginning to end. You can’t make a sound until you’ve gone all the way with her. That’s the one condition.”

“How am I supposed to seduce her if I can’t say a word to her?” I protested.

“Don’t worry,” said the dwarf, shaking his head. “As long as you have me dancing for you, you can get any woman without opening your mouth. So, from the time you set foot in the dance hall to the moment you make her yours, you are absolutely forbidden to use your voice.”

“And if I do?”

“Then your body is mine,” he said, as if stating the obvious.

“And if I do the whole thing without making a sound?”

“Then the girl is yours, and I leave your body and go back to the forest.”

I released a deep, deep sigh. What was I to do? While I wrestled with the question, the dwarf scratched another strange diagram into the earth. A butterfly came and rested on it, exactly in the center. I confess I was afraid. I could not say for certain that I would be able to keep silent from beginning to end. But I knew it was the only way for me to hold that gorgeous girl in my arms. I pictured her in Stage 8, filing the elephant toenail. I had to have her.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

“That’s it,” said the dwarf. “We’ve got our agreement.”

THE DANCE HALL STOOD by the main factory gate, its floor always packed on a Saturday night with the young men and women who worked at the elephant factory. Virtually all of us unattached workers, both male and female, would come here every week to dance and drink and talk with our friends. Couples would eventually slip out to make love in the woods.

How I’ve missed this! the dwarf sighed within me. This is what dancing is all about—the crowd, the drinks, the lights, the smell of sweat, the girls’ perfume. Oh, it takes me back!