Siren Spell

by Cidney Swanson

Giselle glided through the long afternoon, pointing anxious parents to bathrooms, finding loaner slippers for girls who forgot theirs, pinning new numbers onto the leotards of dancers who destroyed theirs leaning against the water fountain, and doing whatever she could to maintain calm in the steaming—and increasingly odiferous—studio.

  It was what she did. Her mother auditioned the dancers, her grandmother took measurements for costumes, her sister chewed her nails and threw up from nerves, and Giselle maintained quiet and order. As she shushed the level 3 students in the c-group a third time, she winked at her grandmother’s ikon. For today, Giselle had named the ikon the Holy Mother of Infinite Patience and Deodorization. At least she didn’t talk to the painting. When Giselle’s mother, a stout atheist of Soviet pedigree, thought no one was looking, she muttered to the ikon, perhaps mistaking the woman rendered in oils for her own exacting mother.

  By degrees, the light filtering through the studio’s windows passed to an exhausted looking pewter before surrendering its hold on the Oregon day. The sun delivered a brief burst of mellow gold toward sunset which transformed the studio into something rather Degas. Giselle gestured to Katya to look up, thinking the delicate glow might take her sister’s mind off the pointe auditions coming next.

  She wished she could do more to settle her sister’s nerves, but Giselle didn’t know how to be nervous, and Katya didn’t know how to be anything else.

  By now, most of the dancers had been released. The studio lobby was dark, but no one turned on the fluorescents. They interfered with the view through the one-way mirrored window onto the auditions. With the level 5 girls watching, Miss Ruslana ran the four oldest boys through their prepared sixty-second pieces. The girls awaited the last two events of the evening: the girls’ pointe auditions and the partnering of the highest level dancers to see who might pair with whom for the principal roles.

  Heidi, who had danced with the sisters as long as either could remember, sidled over to Giselle. “You’ll partner with Kevin, I guess?”

  Heidi knew better than to talk in the lobby. They all did. But the rules had a way of relaxing once the younger dancers had gone home to their suppers and beds.

  “He’s the most experienced danseur in the studio,” Giselle replied airily, significantly neglecting to refer to him as the most “gifted” boy in the studio.

  The undercurrent was not lost on anyone in hearing range.

  “Mm-hmm,” replied Heidi.

  Beside Katya, another of the Chekhov sisters’ long-time dance friends snickered softly. Katya frowned, but Morgan shrugged and murmured that Kevin couldn’t hear them, could he?

  Giselle worried Kevin wasn’t ready for the role of Albrecht, the prince, but she couldn’t voice her fears in front of Heidi and Morgan. Two years earlier, when Miss Ruslana had chosen Giselle for this season’s ballet, the studio had been in high hopes Kevin would have time to grow into the role. Giselle herself felt mingled relief and dismay he hadn’t left dancing altogether since boys tended to drop like flies once they passed five feet in height. Kevin had lasted to a rather wonderful six-foot-two.

  “Who is that?” asked Morgan, pointing, her face pressed to the mirrored window.

  A new danseur executed royale leaps under Miss Ruslana’s steel gaze.

  “Marcus Duval,” replied Giselle, who had registered him earlier.

  “He just moved here from Minneapolis,” added Katya.

  “He’s good,” said Morgan.

  He was very good, thought Giselle. He danced like Kevin ought to but couldn’t quite manage to. Silently, Giselle cursed Marcus’s short height, which would prevent his partnering with her.

  “He’s seventeen,” murmured Katya.

  Heidi turned to Katya, one eyebrow raised. “Really?”

  “He’ll be a junior,” replied Katya.

  “He looks like a freshman,” said Morgan.

  “A freshman with amazing calves,” murmured Giselle, her gaze fixed on those amazing calves. Marcus landed a tenth, eleventh, twelfth royale. Flawlessly. Miss Ruslana signaled him to stop the demanding up-and-down leaps.

  Heidi, Morgan, and Katya all sighed in appreciation. Kevin might have been the studio’s most experienced danseur, but he couldn’t land a royale the same twice even if you paid him to. Giselle had tried.

  “Marcus will make a good Hilarion,” murmured Heidi, referring to the villain of the piece responsible for the heroine’s spiral to madness and death. “And that role is important, too, even if it’s not Prince Albrecht.”

  Dutifully, the three other girls nodded.

  Every role is equally important, Miss Ruslana repeated at the beginning of auditions every year. Since reading Animal Farm, Giselle had enjoyed her grandmother’s quiet addition: Some roles are just more equal than others. If Miss Ruslana overheard it, she ignored it.

  On the dance floor, Marcus bowed and gave way to Kevin. Giselle frowned through the mirrored glass as if to remind Kevin to travel his movement out along his arms. Why couldn’t he remember his arms? His fingers hung stiff and awkward, similarly forgotten. It wouldn’t be much fun saving him from the Queen of the Willis if he danced like that. Giselle could just imagine the audience cringing during his final Variation. And if they didn’t know enough about ballet to cringe, they would almost certainly fall asleep.

  Irena Lyubov, one of Miss Chekhov’s former protégés, was coming in from the National Ballet to dance the role of Myrtha, Queen of the Willis. Irena would have choice remarks to make about sharing the stage with Kevin as Albrecht.

  Giselle sighed and looked down at her feet, tired in a nearly dead pair of Grishko 2007’s. One of these years, the Grishko company would probably decide to retire the 2007’s. Giselle wished she had the discretionary income to buy a hundred pairs, hording them against such an eventuality. She noted one of her ribbon ends had slipped out from behind the knot which was meant to discretely hide it. When her babushka had run the studio, dancers had been required to stitch the ribbon ends in place, even for auditions. The practice had been allowed to slide under Miss Ruslana’s direction, so long as the offensive ribbon ends were never seen.

  As Giselle attempted to re-tuck hers behind the knot of ribbon, she saw the end hadn’t merely slipped, it had frayed as well.

  “Derrmo!” she cursed, her voice a whisper.

  Katya turned to her sister, a “hush!” drawn in the slant of her eyes.

  “I need a lighter,” whispered Giselle.

  Katya passed her one and Giselle moved to an exterior window where the glow cast by the parking lot lights provided better visibility. Raising her offending shoe to the windowsill, Giselle pressed the lighter. Properly, she ought to have removed the shoe first. If Miss Ruslana caught a dancer setting fire to something attached to said-dancer’s leg, said-dancer would be forced to take pointe class on demi-pointe as an exercise in humiliation.

  At that moment, Kevin, Marcus, and the two twelve-year-old danseurs spilled out of the audition room, bringing fresh waves of eau-de-boy into the lobby. The twelve-year-olds jostled one another, one of them bumping a chair which toppled a coat rack which launched something microfleece and flammable into the flare of the lighter presently held to Giselle’s pointe shoe ribbon.

  As it fell to the polished wooden floor, the fleece caught fire.

  2

  THINGS WHICH COULD BE ADDRESSED

  Giselle inhaled, shocked, and tried to tamp out the burning fleece with her slippered foot. Katya squeaked and jumped from the stool she’d been leaning on. Kevin and the twelve-year-olds stared. Marcus, however, had the presence of mind to squirt the contents of his water bottle in the direction of the small blaze. This had the unintended effect of soaking Giselle’s calf, sending threatening drizzles toward her shoe.

  For the second time in two minutes, Giselle uttered a Russian word for excrement.

  Water was a deadly substance, toe shoes being constructed of nothing more than cardboard and glue and satin. She whispered, “Idiot,” in a gene
rally Marcus-ward direction.

  “I wasn’t the one holding a live flame next to things that burn,” Marcus replied calmly.

  Morgan giggled into her hands and Giselle flushed bright red.

  Marcus offered Giselle half a smile, his green eyes flashing mischievously.

  Giselle did not smile back.

  Fortunately, the integrity of the shoe was preserved, and the fire, Giselle admitted to herself, could have been much, much worse without Marcus’s intervention. Not that she planned to tell him this. Her ribbon, now damp, had a crisp, blackened edge, and the studio lobby smelled like burning plastic, and her mother was approaching the door.

  “Clean up the mess you made,” Giselle whispered, frowning at Marcus.

  Marcus regarded her coolly, his green eyes bright against his dark skin. He folded his arms across his chest. “The mess I made?”

  “Girls?” called Miss Ruslana, her voice a silver thread trailing just over the threshold.

  The girls began to exit the lobby.

  Giselle felt her face flushing again.

  “The mess we made. Please,” she begged Marcus, terrified her mother would find … all this when auditions ended.

  As she backed out of the room, a pleading look on her face, Giselle saw Marcus roll his eyes. But he also commenced cleaning up the mess.

  Later, during partner pairings, Giselle managed to communicate a small thank you to Marcus, in part because she was grateful he hadn’t left her exposed to her mother’s anger, but also in part because she felt badly for his five-foot-eight inch height. Being rather shorter than average would lose him a shot at the male lead role in Giselle. Of course, she reasoned, he and Katya would pair beautifully for the Peasant Pas de Deux. Feeling virtuous, Giselle resolved to convince her mother to cast Marcus in that role, because, even though he was good, Marcus simply couldn’t partner with Giselle’s five-foot-ten (and a half) inch height, and that was when she danced on flat. On pointe, she would inhabit a different atmosphere altogether. Marcus was simply too short, as Giselle was certain her mother noted when she paired the two briefly.

  Miss Ruslana’s face never gave anything away. It was her hands you had to watch, and tonight, the sudden curl of her mother’s fingers told Giselle that Marcus wouldn’t be dancing as Prince Albrecht.

  At last the auditions concluded, having worn down to a handful of tired dancers. They closed with a thank you for your time from Miss Ruslana and a half dozen respectful bows and murmured thank you’s from the students. It’s all very old-school Russian, you know, the ballet moms and dads whispered to one another. Giselle wouldn’t have known; she’d only lived in Russia as a newborn baby.

  “First in, last out,” Katya said cheerfully as the four members of the family Chekhov trundled outside.

  They climbed into the noisy Mercedes again and drove home through a spiteful rain. Giselle thought back to her sister’s audition. Katya had come far since last year’s Romeo and Juliet.

  “Good work, Katya,” she said softly.

  Katya smiled and examined her down-to-the-nubbins fingernails. “You too,” she whispered.

  Giselle had snuck glimpses of Katya in the studio mirror as the two auditioned, Katya’s short stature and dark hair contrasting with her own height and pale coloring. Giselle had no idea how it was the two of them looked so dissimilar. Even though they were only a year apart in age, no one ever mistook them for twins. Giselle mused that if the studio were to produce A Midsummer Night’s Dream some year, Katya would make a good Hermia to Giselle’s Helena.

  Giselle took Katya’s hand, squeezing it tight. In spite of the rain, in spite of the near-fire, in spite of Kevin’s abysmal audition, it had been a perfect day.

  In the front seat, Giselle’s mother gripped the steering wheel as the car wound along a road shiny-slick with rain. Ruslana Chekhov did not care for driving, which had not formed a part of her education in St. Petersburg, Russia. Ordinarily, the family walked to the studio, even in the rain, which Babushka said was nothing to Russian snows, but audition days left everyone tired, and when Katya had begged to take the car, their mother had allowed herself to be persuaded.

  The four arrived back home and someone let the dog out and someone opened a can of soup. Babushka went straight to bed without supper, a habit leftover from her years as a prima ballerina. Katya, hyperactive from sneaking sips of the coffee meant for parents, flitted from task to task until the kitchen resembled a place to eat. The three lingered over their supper of whole wheat crackers and Progresso soup, Ruslana and Giselle because they were exhausted, Katya because she’d not eaten anything all day, on top of having unintentionally emptied the contents of her stomach on two occasions.

  “Slow down,” murmured the girls’ mother to Katya. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

  Katya dropped her spoon just as the family dog Sasha shambled back inside through the doggie door.

  “Hey, girl,” said Giselle, smiling.

  Giselle loved Sasha like she loved no one save Katya. The dog had been the receiver of innumerable confidences and the assuager of griefs great and small since Giselle’s first birthday. Giselle couldn’t imagine life without her thick-coated, four-pawed Samoyed companion and snapped at her mother anytime Ruslana remarked Sasha wasn’t long for this world, was she?

  The white Samoyed headed straight for the spill Katya’s spoon had made on the floor. A conscientious dog, Sasha objected to crumbs or other mess on the floor and constantly cleaned up after the family, saving them from sweeping. It was a good arrangement, especially on nights following audition days. Or rehearsal days. Or Ballet for Jocks days. So, most days of the week.

  “Now comes the fun part, Mamulya,” said Katya, calling Giselle’s attention back to the evening’s work still ahead of them.

  The girls’ mother, rousing from her own stupor, gave Katya half a smile and rose.

  “Giselle,” she said, “I need to speak to you in the office.”

  The “office,” a small section of Ruslana’s bedroom, was curtained off from bed and nightstand by a quilt nailed into the ceiling (temporarily only, some nine years earlier.) In comparison to the warm kitchen, the office felt cold, and thanks to a window that never sealed properly, it felt damp.

  Giselle’s mother melted into a chair before her miniature desk. Giselle sank onto an ottoman, also temporarily assigned to this space nine years ago. It was the post-audition routine the two had settled into once Babushka had passed the studio and its cares into the hands of her capable daughter. Giselle’s mother would ask questions about individual students Giselle had taught in level 1 ballet: who might bring what strengths to the performance, who ought not to be relied upon. Miss Ruslana always listened carefully to Miss Giselle’s recommendations.

  But this year Giselle thought things felt … different. Her mother turned to her, a frown rearranging her clean, Slavic features. Giselle looked almost nothing like her mother, who had stopped growing taller at the perfectly ballerina height of five-foot-four. Besides their remarkably disparate heights, there were differences in coloring as well. Her mother visited a salon every five weeks to purchase auburn-colored roots, but Giselle was fairly certain her mother’s hair had never been pale blonde, like hers was.

  Only their eyes were alike, and there, the resemblance was uncanny. From a distance, the two appeared brown eyed. Up close, you saw they shared “eyes of Baltic blue, flecked with tea leaves.” At least, that was what Babushka said.

  “Who is on your ‘maybe’ list?” asked Giselle. She rubbed out a sore spot on her left calf.

  Atop the desk, her mother’s fingers curled protectively around her thumb.

  Giselle felt suddenly alert. Something was up.

  “We need to talk,” said her mother. Ruslana must have noticed her clenched hands. Purposefully, she unfolded them and rested them in her lap.

  Giselle’s eyes drifted to her mother’s audition clipboard, resting upside down so that none of the notes were visible. When Giselle re
ached for the clipboard, her mother placed a hand on it, protective.

  “We need to talk about you,” said Giselle’s mother. Her left hand curled and uncurled again, signaling to Giselle that her mother was conflicted, most likely debating whether to address Giselle in the persona of her mother, her ballet master, or as a fellow instructor. Their relationship was frequently muddied by the co-mingling of these streams.

  Giselle recalled the odor of burning plastic back at the studio. Had her mother noticed after all? Would she be chastised?

  Ruslana cleared her throat and spoke, using her ballet master voice. “We need to address the fact of your height….”

  Giselle blinked, staring. Why would her mother want to “address” Giselle’s height? How was height possibly something over which Giselle could exert control? She was a student of ballet; her life revolved around control of the minutest gesture, the smallest curve of the neck, but height definitely fell outside things which could be addressed.

  Was her mother considering casting Marcus, short Marcus, after all? Surely she wouldn’t ask Giselle to dance the principal role on flat rather than on pointe, would she? Giselle’s heart beat out a rapid tat-a-tat-tat.

  Her mother sighed and then spoke again in her fellow instructor voice. “You’re simply too tall.”

  Giselle felt warmth radiating from her chest, gathering strength as it sped along her neck and face. She would not dance in slippers. She would refuse. She would insist her mother cast Kevin before agreeing to dance the role in anything but pointe shoes.

  “This isn’t easy for me, milaya moya,” said Giselle’s mother, attempting a final downshift into mothering mode. “But I think it’s time we both faced the fact that you are too tall for a career in ballet.”

  What? This was not the right conversation. This was not remotely the right conversation. They were here to discuss the ballet Giselle. The cast list. The dancers. Giselle had to get her mother back on track.

  “We can talk about this another time—”

  “You used to love lyrical jazz,” interrupted her mother. She pursed her lips the way she did when Katya or Giselle had done something wrong.