Letters from Yelena

by Guy Mankowski

  As soon as the curtain fell I ran up to her to tell her how wonderfully she had danced. It did not occur to me that in a couple of nights the critics’ glare would be upon me, and we would be compared to one another. At that moment I simply wanted to express my joy at how beautifully Erin had performed. She was sweet and accommodating, and she looked relieved herself. In the papers the next day the critics were breathless with praise for her. And then it was back to getting my head down, and focusing on the areas that Michael felt needed improving. I had a few more days to do it, I told myself, and I always worked best under pressure. You were there though, Noah, at the back of my mind.

  It was the morning before the second show that it happened. I often wonder, in retrospect, if until that point you had seen my composure at the party as how I usually am, and the anxiety that followed as some new, surprising development. I am sure you know now that is not the case. The placid, calm person you had met had simply been learning to play a role.

  I arrived slightly late that morning; the tube had been delayed. I flounced over to Michael, full of weak apologies. But there was a trace of a smile on his lips, and it worried me. Stood in the corner of the hall, a sweater draped over his shoulders, he suddenly announced, ‘I have a treat for you all.’ As he said it he looked glaringly over to me. I realised how different his character was now he was no longer in a room full of luminaries. There, in the doorway, was Alina. She dropped her bag with a formidable clatter, and tore off her hair band. In that very moment, the world I had started to cautiously assemble shattered instantly into a thousand pieces.

  We stood mute, in a rough semi-circle. Erin and I exchanged looks; even she struggled to look composed. ‘Alina Volodov,’ Michael continued, ‘is fresh off the plane from St Petersburg, having recently played Masha in The Nutcracker at the Mariinsky.’ Eva looked down. ‘She was, originally, going to be another Giselle, and now we are looking to create a new role for her as a soloist. Get yourselves warmed up, we will work out the details over the next few days.’

  I looked over at Alina, her face tilted to one side as she looked curiously back at me. Her expression was one of amused rivalry.

  Alina was settled in St Petersburg by the time I first moved there. She was already a soloist in the days that I was homesick, malnourished, and unable to make a mistake without silently cursing myself. She had never missed an opportunity to demonstrate her superiority over me. On one strange and difficult day, I had asked her advice on a routine and she had replied with a certain approach which she had said would meet with the choreographer’s approval. Little did I know that the day before I had arrived, the choreographer had told the already assembled dancers that that approach was the one thing he did not wish to see. It had been my first chance to flourish and put the pain of those difficult days when I had first arrived behind me, but Alina had knowingly sent me into a humiliating situation, and my dancing had so enraged the choreographer that I had been consigned to the wilderness for the whole of that first season.

  Alina had initially made me believe she was receptive and warm, someone I could turn to, only to later use that trust just to obliterate the competition. As a result I had sunk lower than I had ever been, lower even than when I had first come to St Petersburg. She was the last person I wanted to have competing for my role, at this most important moment. Especially at a time when hope had finally began to come into my life. I felt that if anyone on earth could push me into a state of dejection, even madness, it was her. That icy sense of entitlement, that complete lack of scruples, that ability to charm so effectively that it seemed she had suddenly changed. The pressure I put upon myself was formidable enough, let alone the demands Michael placed upon me too. But the added uncertainty of her Machiavellian presence would surely be too much for me to handle.

  The second night did not go well. Minutes before we were due to go onstage I passed by Erin’s dressing room with the intention of wishing her luck, and saw her with her head in her hands. It seemed that the presence of a new Principal dancer from Russia, ready to take her role at a moment’s notice, was too much even for her. That night she did not dance as I knew she could and Alina, in her makeshift role, danced with a drama that captured everyone’s attention. My solo dance was technically fine, though a little stiff and unemotional. Afterwards, I found myself lingering backstage, waiting for the opportunity to hear Michael’s opinion of my turn. Eventually, Michael came over and looked me up and down. ‘That wasn’t bad,’ he said. ‘But I want to see some of that volatile dancing which made me first take a gamble on you. Very soon you will be dancing Giselle and you must step up to it. If I don’t believe you can do it, Alina will get the role.’

  At that, the colour instantly drained from my face. Michael saw this, shrugged and said, ‘This is how it is in the top flight, and you have to prove to me now that you are up to it. You are working on your faults, and I am aware of that. But I need to see some uniqueness. It can be done, even in a soloist role. You need to prove to me that I should gift you with the role of Giselle for the most important two nights. Or I will be making changes.’ At this he glanced over at Alina, beaming as she removed her headdress. I couldn’t believe it. Already, I had moved from having the lead role for two nights to having to prove all over again that it should even be mine. And Alina had only just arrived.

  During rehearsals for the rest of that week, Alina and I locked horns to fight for the lead role. Every second Michael was present she became more flamboyant than ever, and I wondered when Michael’s enthusiasm for her theatrical dancing might wane. But if anything, he gave her slightly more room to shine as the week wore on. I couldn’t express my frustration at this. During the one time I needed everything to make sense, this ghost from the past had thrown it into complete disarray. All I could do was remain focused, not take in the eyes upon me, and draw from my own experiences when dancing. In so doing, I found that I had a well of emotional experiences I could use whilst being Giselle, and I gradually started to enjoy the audacity of expression.

  After a day of this, Michael’s criticisms seemed to lose their bite, and then their frequency. But Alina was undeterred. Silently, I speculated whether she specifically wanted to take the lead role on the nights it was scheduled for me, even though Erin was at present looking the most vulnerable. After all, Alina knew she had usurped me once, and therefore perhaps felt she could do it again.

  I focused all my energy upon staying strong. I surprised myself in that week, and learnt that I was not the delicate wallflower I had long thought I was. You had messaged me after the opening night, Noah, saying that you had been unable to come but inviting me for supper on the Wednesday. It had been enough to illuminate the first part of my week and inspire me to hold it together. I had something to look forward to. I remember that Wednesday morning, when the lead dancers practiced their big jumps during centre work. Alina shamelessly elbowed me out of the way to make sure she had centre stage, even though it was I who clearly needed to practice this most. Far from discouraging this sort of competitiveness, Michael seemed to relish it. I had to spend most of the rehearsal pushed into corners, trying to practice as best as I could and wondering when Michael would assert some authority over this madness. But he just stayed there, leaning against the piano in the corner, his eyes flicking between Eva, Erin, Alina and me with a bored nonchalance.

  But finally Wednesday night came, and I felt that I had held off this new threat, at least for the time being. I felt a hollow thrill in my stomach as I realised there was now a little room for pleasure. It was not long until Monday, when I would have my two nights as Giselle, once Eva had had her moment. I was almost walking on air as I made my way home in preparation for our date. I had not been told Alina would be taking my role, and therefore could only assume I had proven she should not. I did not know what lay ahead of me, but I did know that I had now earned the pleasure of an evening with you.

  With love from,

  Yelena

  Dear Noah,
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br />   I remember it took a day for me to reply to your invitation for supper. When I got your message I felt at that moment as if I was standing on the edge of a cliff, which was looming over a great, shimmering sea. The wind was blowing hard against my back and it was inevitable that soon I would be pushed off the edge. But I wanted to choose the moment when that happened, and only once I had worked out how best to fall.

  I remember it was a cool and bright day, if not quite the English summer’s day I had mentally rhapsodised over when living in the east. One night after rehearsal, I checked that I knew how to get to your house. It was harder to pinpoint than I’d thought it would be, but in the end I found it, towards the edge of the city, at the beginning of the suburbs. It was on the corner of a field that students often cut through on their way to the university, partially obscured by a row of willow trees. Only by taking the more elaborate route home did I see from the other side that it was in fact a deceptively large townhouse, with none of its windows currently illuminated. I wondered if you were perhaps writing in the dilapidated chalet that I had noticed in the corner of the garden, just visible from the field. I didn’t stick around to find out. I was concerned you would notice me and reasonably enquire what I was doing there, a few days early. What is curious is that in the days leading up to our date, in my mind I had already walked through your house, and when I did finally come to enter it, it was exactly how I had thought it would be.

  That night I managed to escape from rehearsal a little earlier than usual. Knowing that I was coming to your house, I felt as if I was carrying a heavy jewel that I had stolen from the other girls. The silence of my flat seemed to push me out into the city as I stood, the desk lamp illuminating the contours of my stripped body, in front of my full-length mirror. Anxiety had begun to grip me. I loathed the slightly comic curve of my torso, the long, helpless circles my arms tended to swing in and the wide gap between my eyes. But then I remembered my sister’s advice, on the days we’d toyed with makeup as little girls: ‘You don’t need to do this, Yelena. Wear as little as you can, so people can see how pretty you are.’ As I prepared for our date, her words returned to me. I left my face almost devoid of makeup, expect for a touch of red on my lips. I chose a simple, white summer dress and brown sandals. I was late already, but in no mood to hurry the experience.

  Having walked through the soft summer’s evening, I heard commotion the moment I pushed the doorbell. I haven’t been on that many dates, Noah, unlike you. The building throb of uncertainty, that rising thirst for details, the peculiarly feminine reluctance to yield without sufficient cause. These are emotions that you will be unaware of. And again the voice of my sister, in later years, returned to me. ‘You are the woman – the pressure is on him to earn you.’ That was what she had said. At the time I had dismissed her words as archaic and sexist, but as I heard movement behind the door, they acted as a sudden balm to me.

  You were wearing a crisp white shirt, the sleeves rolled up as if you had been mixing ingredients with your hands. You greeted me with a half-smile before looking nervously at the floor. As you ushered me inside I took in the Rothko prints, the statuettes, the stacks of fanned books. The large portrait of a semi-nude ballerina over the fireplace – should I have taken that as a warning? Music was playing in the distance, but I couldn’t quite make it out. Steam moved in bulbous curls from the kitchen. I could hear a kettle singing. As we moved towards the cooking I saw the back door wide open, and through it the faded façade of your chalet.

  As the risotto cooked you suggested we open a bottle of wine out on the patio, where you could still keep an eye on the steaming pots. As you made adjustments in the kitchen I picked around the charming relics in your garden – the small, algae lined fountain, the somehow brooding chalet. I moved over to its windows and peered inside. It was dusty, but draped over a wicker chair I could see a woman’s blouse, which looked recently abandoned. For some reason I decided not to think about it. Until we sat down together we remained in our separate universes, trading features of our new roles.

  I saw for the first time the uncompromising terrain of dating. Each person has learnt enough about the other to assume the date could work, and yet the attending anxiety reveals aspects of the other far too intimate for a first encounter. We have to leave room for our accomplice to find their mask amongst this exposure. I was careful to appear remote, detached, but accommodating. You were clearly trying to hide how flustered and inadequate you felt, which made me feel more attractive. I took in tokens of your appeal, scattered around the house, each reflective of your creativity. It was suggested in the nude charcoal paintings lolling over one end of the couch; it was in the sheaves of writing pinned under glass jars. You asked how the season was going – I tried to make out it was just one occupation I had. The pots started to boil over and we hurried to spread their contents out on the table. You seemed relieved that I didn’t want to be waited on, not knowing that a man had never even cooked for me before.

  As we sat down together to eat, I realised how time experiences separation in such scenarios. While we talked I grew to know the endless chasms that can stretch out between one sentiment and another. It occurred to me that a date was perhaps nothing more than a matter of joining the dots. I could see you thinking that you constantly needed to have the next step of the evening ready to disclose. And it felt as if it was my job to calm that process, but more pressingly to validate it. That tension soon broke into a sense of expectation. An interesting question opened out on the fertile terrain, which we felt indulgent to remain on for long, so charged was each moment with awareness of the next. In coaxing one another through that it occurred to me how quickly the two of us took our mutual attraction for granted. I found pleasure in the rolling momentum, which we took it in turns to hurry and suppress. In so doing I temporarily forgot the appeal of your fragrance and the curiosity in your eyes. But when such charms hit me – between one wry observation and another – they were completely disarming. Gradually, as the plates started to clear, it became apparent that there was laughter in the air, laughter that was now unburdened by fear. Indeed, the two of us had found enough fertile patches in the conversation to return to at later dates. That generous sprinkling of promising moments was the glitter that would soon illuminate our relationship.

  The flirtatious energy remained as you took the plates inside and fussed over the hot sauce for the pudding. I was stood at the entrance to the chalet, wondering if I could venture inside when I heard you draw closer. You pressed a glass of wine into my fingers – slightly steamed by the heat of the kitchen. You lingered as our eyes held one another’s. Your eyes darted to my lips, and the moment I raised my chin you kissed me. I cupped your ear in my hand and giggled, kissed you back as your hand darted down the suddenly thin fabric of my summer dress. The tang of white wine was on your lips; the sun bloomed overhead. I felt it nestle in my back and I laughed. ‘Our pudding, I’ll burn that as well!’ you said.

  ‘Then fetch it quickly,’ I answered. ‘And we can enjoy the last rays of the sun.’ I sounded imperious, and you shouted something inaudible back. ‘Can we eat on the steps of the chalet?’ I asked. Inside it I had seen a typewriter, and the notebook you’d had with you when you first saw me dance. I was intrigued by the thought of its consequence, and what it might reveal about your life. On your way back you momentarily looked concerned. ‘If you like,’ and then, ‘of course.’ You handed me a bowl of caramel tart and ice cream, at once hot and cool to touch. A dish I would never have allowed myself to enjoy normally, and yet here – in this role – I was able to. I realised I had now shed my role as a seductress; it had slipped away and revealed the real Yelena for the first time. You knew nothing of the self-loathing, of the isolation, of the silence of my past. It didn’t need to exist anymore. Your intense, flashing gaze told me it was unnecessary now. But I promised myself I would tell you about it one day, if only for my own sense of integrity.

  You asked me how I really felt in the city.
I said I still felt pretty lonely, and I wondered if I was ready to dance as a Principal. I told you about my need to please Michael, about Alina, about how desperate I was not to go back to the Ukraine with my tail between my legs. That I felt on the edge of achieving something momentous, but that there was little evidence as to why. And then I asked how you felt in the city, and what was happening in your world. In snatched, self-conscious sentences you told me that an eccentric uncle had left you this house three months ago, which had forced you, for financial reasons, to return to the city that you had lived in as a younger man. ‘Hence the state of disarray.’

  Over the last crumbs of tart, as we looked back at the house, you told me about the progress of your book. You said the breakthrough of your second novel had been a pleasant surprise, given that it had been written mainly to satirise a certain genre of ‘cutting-edge’ fiction. ‘I wrote it in a fit of despair at my life, as a desperate attempt to do something of meaning. For years I had worked in dull bureaucratic jobs, and writing had been my escape. My first book had been written under another name as a bit of a trial run, but my second one had instantly gained a lot of coverage. After years of frustration and hardship it brought me the kind of lifestyle I had always wanted. One which gave me the room to write. Now I suddenly find myself as a full-time writer, but I’ve done no groundwork to understand that role. And I’m still learning to be domesticated, and yet I have this great big house. It’s so strange.’