Ballerina

by Edward Stewart

She was paralyzed in an icy instant of not knowing how she had got here or where here was. Could it be the city street where her hand had slipped out of Nanny’s, or the classroom full of strangers, or the swimming pool where a boy had shouted ‘Swim!’ and pushed, or was this some greater and more terrible height than ever before?

  She stared down, not recognizing the chasm. She waited for the insane golden courage of the dancer to descend on her. All that came was the music, the thread that tempted her forward like a voice shouting: Jump! Leap from the cliff!

  End it!

  Her feet lingered one last moment, kissing the safe earth of immobility. Something within her counted. She flexed. She readied. She reached to take one hand of the void. Music, the seducing suicide voice, whispered—Now!

  She arched, bent, plunged.

  She fell into a stage-light galaxy that stretched in ribbons. Stars blazing the colours of flowers warned her: Fall no farther, here are the edges of the universe! The music, gusting up with the force of wind, fought her descent, caught her, held her, moved her perfectly along an unwavering upward slope.

  The music signalled and her body understood. Eruptions detonated at the tips of her feet and hands. Bright feathered movements burst from her. Limbs and torso thrust and swam, leapt and ran, with not even a whisper of her own will.

  Dimly, distantly, she was aware of a rush of air from a thousand throats, the gasp of the black rose.

  There was no time to glance back at her fear: the signals came too fast. She let the motions happen. She let them take hold and mould her, use her, spin her across fragments of eternity.

  And finally set her down in thunder.

  The black rose opened and shut, shut and opened. An usherette took hold of the monster curtain and, pitting all her weight against it, held it open a pitiful crack.

  Hands pushed Chris forward. She curtsied. The sweat stung her eyes like gouging fingernails but she remembered to smile, and when her partner handed her the bouquet that had fallen from nowhere she remembered to pluck out one rose and hand it back to him.

  Steph watched from the wing. Applause washed over her—Chris’s applause. She turned away, puzzled. Somehow, miraculously, the ballet had meshed. Chris had danced it and danced it brilliantly.

  Steph ought to have been relieved but she felt something else, a whispering itch that shamed her. She tried to ignore it.

  Ellis came up behind her, grinning. ‘Looks like your little friend made it, eh, Steph? Overnight the worm turns into a butterfly. I’ll bet you’re real happy.’

  Steph stared at him. ‘Yes, Ellis, I am happy. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Big-hearted of you.’

  ‘Maybe I’m not big-hearted. But Chris worked herself to death and she’s good and she deserves a success.’

  Ellis bent to smack a cold kiss on her forehead. ‘And you, honey, deserve her.’

  Chris looked tired the next morning—no wonder—and Steph volunteered to go for the reviews.

  On the way home she thumbed through the News, defying fresh ink and sticky pages. The review was there: New Volmar Repeated. Her eye dove down the column, past the fuzzy photo of Wally supporting Chris in arabesque, captioned Dazzling soloist. Her eye slowed. The words were black lumps, like ants pressed together. Her mind tried to separate them, to sift meaning from ‘lyricism' and ‘long splashing leaps’ and ‘fearless syncopation,’ all the poetic and wrong terms that made criticism a disturbingly foreign language. Gradually, she understood that the review was favourable.

  She leafed through the Times—four unmanageable sections today. She managed not to drop the ‘Home' section. They came right out and called Chris ‘spectacular.’

  Steph shut her eyes. My ballet, she thought; Chris’s reviews. A jealous stab went through her and for one ripping instant it was as though Chris had aimed an arrow at the exact centre of her stomach.

  She pushed the pain away, refusing it. She reminded herself of all the dancers who worked and worked and never got mentioned. Her mind saw a field of unmarked graves.

  She stared up the avenue. Eight blocks away Chris was waiting. Chris the success.

  Steph organized the papers under one arm. She straightened her shoulders and took two deep, fortifying breaths.

  ‘Chris?’ she called as she let herself into the apartment. ‘I’ve got them!’

  Chris was sitting at the window, staring out. She didn’t answer. Steph walked over and stood holding the papers.

  ‘Every one of them mentions you. You’re a hit.’

  Chris gazed at her blankly. ‘What?’

  That was it. Not a thank you, just a what. Chris did not even reach for the papers.

  ‘Your reviews,’ Steph said. ‘I brought you your reviews.’

  Chris’s eyes sipped in a little of her and then turned toward the window again.

  ‘The News says you’re lyrical, the Times says you’re terrific. Chris, I’m talking about your reviews.’

  ‘I heard you,’ Chris said.

  Steph could not check a sudden surge of exasperation. She thrust the papers into Chris’s lap. Chris sat a moment without moving; then, like a dutiful child in school, she opened the papers one by one. She found the arts page in each. Her eyes floated up and down the columns of print. She closed the papers, stacked them, put them down as though they were too heavy to hold.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Steph cried.

  Chris stared at her.

  ‘What in the world do you expect, Chris? Most newcomers don’t even get noticed, and you—you’re on every dance page in town!’

  ‘I danced badly.’ There was something flat and beaten in the voice that matched the dullness in the eyes.

  Maybe it’s normal, Steph thought. Maybe after a terrible strain it’s normal to sit staring out of windows, to let your reviews slide through your fingers like melted snow.

  ‘You danced beautifully,’ Steph said.

  ‘I slipped on a gargouillade.’

  Steph was speechless. Chris’s eyes squinted up at her, mute and uncomprehending. Steph crouched. She placed her hand on Chris’s, let it lie there, feeling the slow pulse.

  They stayed that way a long time. Steph fought to be kind.

  ‘Chris, aren’t you happy? Doesn’t it mean anything at all?’

  Chris sighed and turned away.

  Steph couldn’t think what more to say. Now didn’t seem the moment. She went quietly into the kitchen and began measuring out brewer’s yeast for the morning pep-up drink.

  And then threw the goddamned blender into the sink.

  twenty-nine

  That summer Steph and Chris were roommates on the company tour of Europe.

  In London it worked. The language was English, the reviews were good, and Chris whooped like a child when Steph took her to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

  Paris was harder. They hiked up Montmartre to see the view from Sacré Coeur cathedral and Chris felt dizzy. They bought Belgian waffles from a corner stand in the Latin Quarter and Chris took a nibble and wasn’t hungry and threw hers away. They went up the Eiffel Tower and the mob pressed them together and at the first level Chris whispered, ‘I’ve got to get out!’

  Steph found her later in the hotel room, sitting with the curtains drawn. ‘Chris, it’s a beautiful day, we’re in Paris, pretend it’s a vacation and enjoy yourself!’

  Chris’s eyes gazed into Steph’s and seemed to peer beyond them. ‘I’ll try.’

  And maybe she did try. But never hard enough. Steph had to keep prodding: cheer up, chin up. ‘We may never be in Madrid again, and the Prado Museum has the best collection of Hieronymus Bosch in the world!’ And in Rome, ‘Now you’re not going to come all this way and skip St Peter’s! What if the Pope puts in a surprise appearance, would you want to miss that?’

  And in Athens, ‘You’ll be the only one in the company who hasn’t seen the Parthenon.’

  ‘I can see it from window.’

  ‘If you’d open the blind
s you’d see that you can’t see it from the window. Come one, put on your sandals and load up your camera.’

  Steph pushed and Chris trudged. Something always went wrong, and suddenly, Chris had a headache or the trots or an ankle on the verge of strain, and she would scurry back to the hotel for shelter. Steph came to dread the Do not disturb signs dangling from doorknobs and the drawn shades and Chris huddled in a chair or under the bed sheets.

  Steph felt her patience blowing away bit by bit. ‘Chris, is there anything wrong?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nothing you want to talk about?’

  ‘No. Could you just sit with me till I fall asleep?’

  She tried to understand, but Chris was two people and nothing explained both of them. There was the Chris who sat in hotel rooms shutting out all of Europe. Then there was the Chris who came to life in performance, who danced whether she had a fever or diarrhoea or her period—and got good reviews.

  By the time the company reached Amsterdam, Steph felt shackled and drained. Her mind ached and her body was in constant bad temper. There was very little rehearsal space in the State Opera, and in class she was squeezed between Carla, who couldn’t end her combinations correctly, and Ellis, who thought it was funny to blow on the back of her neck. To make matters worse, Volmar had jetted over the night before and was giving the class.

  The pianist was playing a thumping waltz that only added to Steph’s dispiritedness. Her body was an impossibly heavy, impossibly stupid weight.

  ‘Turn—repeat on the other leg.’

  The dancers turned with smooth weariness. The piano thumped on. Outside, one of those North European rains was falling that seemed to leave the city dirtier. Water tapped the windows with the nattering sound of fingers. Feet drew silken whispers from wood.

  Volmar began weaving up and down the barres. He stopped beside Chris, eyes taking measure. ‘Keep your right arm in second position, my dear.’

  The whole class could hear, as obviously they were meant to. Her arm was in perfectly decent second. He touched her shoulder, ran his fingertip out to her wrist. Always smiling. It was a deliberate movement, like the stripping of bark from a branch in one continuous piece.

  Glances darted between dancers: Did you see that? A blush rose faintly on Chris’s throat and Volmar continued his stroll.

  Now he stood at Steph’s barre, unsmiling. She became careful. She arched her foot. She froze her arm in good second, unwavering, the fingers spaced and completing the line. There was nothing he could criticize.

  ‘Two ronds de jambe à terre en dehors,’ he barked, ‘one rond de jambe à terre en demi-plié....’

  The words were aimed at her with the directness of bullets. Finishing the combination, she slipped: she did a rond de jambe à terre instead of closing in fourth. It was foolish and unthinking of her and exactly the sort of mistake Volmar loved to pounce on. A tightness closed across her chest. She braced herself for the demolition to come.

  There was one flick of his eyes into hers, his gaze an alloy of steel and contempt. He moved on, saying nothing.

  Ellis leaned forward, his whisper hot in Steph’s ear. ‘Honey, when he doesn’t even bother to scream, you’re dead!’

  That was the trigger. A wind stirred in her, whipping her hands and face to a burn. She felt a blinding surge of resentment. If it weren’t for Chris, a voice in her shouted, I’d have enjoyed the tour, I’d be rested, I wouldn’t make idiot mistakes in class!

  And suddenly she detested the part of herself that loved Chris: she was an animal wanting to lop off the paw that held it in a trap. Her mind went skimming along the friendship that fenced her in. There had to be a loose slat. If she couldn’t escape through it, then at least she could use it to beat Chris.

  ‘I’m taking the tour boat,’ Steph said that afternoon.

  ‘Can’t we just rest?’ Chris’s eyes were moist and huge and soft purple, like bruises that had been powdered over. The summer had eroded whatever gift for aloneness Chris might once have possessed, and Steph knew just how to hurt her.

  ‘I’m taking the tour boat. Are you coming or not?’

  The boat took them through the harbour and canals of Amsterdam. It was a grey day, drizzling. The guide spoke five languages and Steph could tell Chris wasn’t hearing a word of any of them. Then a bus took them to the flower market and the diamond market and finally to a small warehouse.

  ‘We will now see the Anne Frank museum,’ the guide announced. ‘It was here during World War II that the Jewish girl Anne Frank hid with her parents and several friends from the Nazis. Please stay in line.’

  Steph had not known that the museum was part of the tour. It was a narrow building with cramped staircases. Several tour groups were going through it at once, whispering in different languages.

  On the wall were photographs with captions. The line moved so slowly that there was no way of not looking at them. A German housewife going to the baker with a wheelbarrow full of paper money to buy a loaf of bread. Hitler addressing a rally at Nuremberg, arm thrust out straight as a leg in développé.

  Chris clutched Steph’s hand.

  Anne Frank in what looked like a high school yearbook portrait, a girl with wonderful ballerina eyes. A mass of human limbs, not at first recognizable as corpses, dumped in fourteen-foot garbage heaps. A human head with the upper hemisphere of the skull removed, brain exposed and intricately veined and grooved.

  Steph heard a scream and her hand was suddenly empty. ‘Chris!’ she called. ‘Wait!’ And she fought her way back through the silent mass of people.

  She found Chris in the hotel room sobbing. ‘Is that what happens?’

  Steph knelt and tried to stroke comfort into the shaking body. ‘It only happened once, Chris.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know why.’

  ‘They passed laws against her. They wouldn’t let her go to school. They wouldn’t let her go to the movies. They wouldn’t let her walk in the streets.’

  ‘The laws weren’t just against her, Chris.’

  ‘They wouldn’t let her have friends!’

  ‘She had friends. She had good friends.’

  Chris’s voice was shrill and her eyes were on fire. ‘They killed her!’ She didn’t do anything to them and they killed her!’ All of Chris’s nightmares were upon her. Terror had finally forced a passage through all her flimsy pieced-together barriers. The certainty of pain and death, so carefully buried, had erupted into the open. It was running wild in her.

  ‘They’re gone now,’ Steph said. ‘They’re not killing anyone any more.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Chris stumbled to the window and pulled the curtains shut.

  ‘It’s history, Chris. That was a museum. It was all long ago.’ Steph had supper sent to the room and Chris didn’t touch it. A cathedral bell chimed and Steph said, ‘We’d better get ready to go to the theatre.’

  Chris stared as though she were insane. ‘I can’t go out there.’

  ‘Yes, you can. You’re dancing tonight.’

  Chris shook her head, three violent no’s.

  Steph put her hand gently on Chris’s cheek. ‘It’s only three blocks. I’ll be with you.’

  The back of Chris’s neck was damp. Steph bathed her and dried her and dressed her and walked her to the theatre. Chris sat in the dressing room, thin and pale and rigid, hands folded in a lump on her stomach.

  The stage manager called for places and Chris didn’t move. ‘Chris,’ Steph said, ‘you’re dancing in five minutes. Hear the orchestra tuning up?’

  Two silent tears crawled twin tracks down Chris’s face.

  ‘Come on. You’re wrecking your make-up.’ Steph grabbed a Kleenex to blot and a mascara brush to repair.

  The stage manager rapped lightly on the door.

  ‘Can you hold the curtain two minutes?’ Steph said. Chris wouldn’t stop crying. Steph shook her. ‘You’re a dancer, damn it. Now start acting like one.’

  There was no
response and it dawned on Steph that Chris didn’t even hear her.

  ‘Chris.’ She snapped a finger in front of Chris’s eye. No blink. Steph hesitated, then slapped Chris forehand, backhand, hard across the cheeks.

  ‘Girl talk or can I butt in?’ Wally stood in the doorway, chewing gum. He bent to pick at loose lint on a leg warmer. ‘May I have the honour of the next dance with one of you two superstars?’

  Steph’s glance shot from Wally to Chris and back.

  ‘She’s zonked,’ Wally said. ‘You’re covering.’

  ‘But I’ve never danced Cantabile.’

  ‘You’ve rehearsed.’ Wally pulled out a strand of gum and sucked it back in.

  ‘I don’t even remember how it starts.’

  He tossed a nod in the direction of the house. ‘Neither do they.’

  Steph’s mind clutched for excuses. ‘I’m not in costume.’

  ‘So? It’ll be Cantabile in tutu. This is not a formal dress ball. You’ll notice I’m wearing the wrong schmatta too.’

  Steph stared. ‘Spectre?’

  He nodded. ‘Not one Spectre on the whole tour, eighteen Cantabiles, so what do they pack? Look, you’ll be a Sylphide, I’ll be a rose, now let’s get off our asses.’

  Steph threw a last worried glance back at Chris. Wally tugged her toward the wings.

  ‘What’s my entrance?’ She suddenly couldn’t remember.

  ‘Your entrance is lying down. I do all the heavy work. Want me to cue you?’

  ‘Took you long enough,’ the stage manager said.

  Wally plucked the gum from his mouth and slapped it onto the stage manager’s nose. ‘Tell them Anna Pavlova’s subbing.’

  Steph had marked the role in rehearsal, but she was used to a piano and the sound of the string orchestra threw her.

  ‘Not yet,’ Wally whispered when she began her port de bras, prone position. ‘You’ve got eight more counts, so enjoy the nap.’ The eight counts went sobbing by in the cellos and then Wally whispered the movements to her. The company choreologist stood in the wing hissing directions, and Wally jeté’d over and said, ‘You’re confusing the lady. I’ll handle it.’

  And he did exactly that.