Ballerina

by Edward Stewart

  ‘This isn’t stage make-up. It’s just so they’ll notice you a little better. Hold still.’

  ‘Mom, it’s not a performance.’

  ‘You got four hundred kids going against you for ten scholarships. Today’s a performance. You remember your variation?’

  Steph nodded. Anna had made her prepare a short solo with a gorgeous backward hop in arabesque. Maybe she’d need it, maybe she wouldn’t. Better safe than sorry.

  ‘These lids look like dropsy. Someday when we’re rich I’m going to give you surgery for Christmas.’

  Anna remembered her own auditions and she knew the traps. In the taxi she tested Steph.

  ‘They’ll shout combinations at you ten miles long. You have to remember and you have to be ready.’

  Anna made up combinations of steps. Steph tried to recite them back.

  ‘You won’t have time and you won’t have breath. Use your fingers—mark the combinations. It’s the only way they’ll stay with you.’

  Steph marked. When Anna made up crazy combinations Steph marked those too, which showed she was reacting, not thinking, and that was exactly what a dancer had to do.

  They arrived at the school good and early. Anna knew auditions: you never had time to warm up. That was another of the traps. Steph was going to be warmed up and ready today. They went to the desk, where a receptionist gave Steph a piece of cardboard with two holes and a string.

  ‘Wear it around your neck. That’s your number.’

  The number was 32, which told Anna there were thirty-one little girls and thirty-one mums ahead of them. It looked more like eight million when they pushed through the door.

  ‘Where the hell are we going to warm up?’ Anna muttered. ‘Never mind. Go change. I’ll find somewhere.’

  Steph went to the girl’s dressing room. With nervous, fumbling fingers she changed clothes and put her number on. The girls who already had scholarships were watching the others. They seemed sleek and worldly and enviably grown up as they sipped coffee and smoked cigarettes, and slightly cruel as they talked, not caring if they were overhead.

  ‘Baby pink hand-knit—do you believe it?’

  ‘Volmar hates leg warmers—he’d puke.’

  Steph’s leg warmers were green, machine-knit. She took them off anyway.

  ‘Oh, God—she’ll never get in, not with that flouncy skirt.’

  Anna had bought Steph the flouncy skirt especially for the audition. But these girls knew the judges better than her mother, and Steph took the skirt off too.

  ‘Where’s your skirt?’ Anna cried.

  ‘I don’t want to wear it.’

  Twelve dollars and fifty cents and she didn’t want to wear it. ‘And your leg warmers!’

  ‘I don’t want the judges to see me in leg warmers.’

  Too late now to argue. Anna pulled Steph into the ladies’ room and slapped her hand down on the edge of the sink. ‘Profile to the mirror and plié. Come on. If you don’t stay warm you’ll never hold your turn-out.’

  ‘Mom, you’re embarrassing me.’

  Anna tossed a nod at a girl who was warming up two sinks down. ‘She’s not embarrassed, why should you be?’

  The other girl was so deep in concentration her eyes could have been fastened to her reflection with wires. She had hair a little less blonde than Steph and eyes a little darker.

  Anna clapped her hands, driving Steph through pliés and tendus. Girls dashed in and dashed out, peeing, washing hands, needing the sink, but Anna kept clapping and she kept her little girl warm right up till the moment the voice on the loudspeaker called, ‘Numbers 1 through 40, rehearsal room 4.’

  ‘That’s us. Now remember, don’t try to do it by watching the other girls. Half of them are wrong and the other half are copying someone else. Do exactly what the teacher says and do it fast.’ Anna pushed Steph through the mob and into rehearsal room 4. She waved good luck and Steph waved back.

  The dance teacher had braced himself in the doorway. He funnelled the girls past with flicks of the hand, ready to block any momma or friend who tried to crash the audition. My God, Anna thought. Hugh Williams. Ballet Caravan. She’d seen him just after World War II in Til Eulenspiegel. So that’s what had happened to Hugh Williams: dyed hair and a mouth stitched into a tight little pout and he was running the cattle auction for NBT.

  Anna wondered if Marty would- have ended up like that. Fat chance.

  And then she noticed the other girl going in too, the blonde from the bathroom, and she thought, Uh-oh, two blondes, same height, and that one has a better turn-out, why the hell couldn’t Steph have drawn a number over 40?

  The teacher closed the door. He clapped his hands for attention.

  ‘All right, boys and girls—excuse me, boy and girls—take your positions at the barres. Numerical order, please.’

  It took a half hour’s jostling and Steph could see the teacher getting more bored and more bad-tempered with each wasted minute. When numbers 1 through 40 were finally straight he put down his coffee and called the first exercise.

  ‘Plié combination first second fourth fifth position. Reverse it yourselves.’ He snapped it out as though it were one word, almost too quickly to grasp. He did that on purpose, Steph realized. It was his revenge for the fumbled half-hour.

  The pianist oompahed the 2/4 plié rhythm. He obviously had a grudge against anything with a keyboard.

  Ronds de jambe piled up on top of pliés –‘Reverse it yourselves!’ and then came the leg-stretching tendus. ‘Demi-plié, tendu devant, up, demi-plié in fourth, tendu, close.’ The teacher stalked up and down the barres. He had the disgusted look of a farmer inspecting rows of blighted corn.

  ‘Battement right leg; open to side; balance à la seconde.’

  The battement—a fluttering movement of the foot, like beats of a bird’s wings—required speed, but most of the girls were up to it. It was at the first balance that candidates began failing. The floor thudded with falling bodies. Some girls could not let go of the barre. Others let go and had to grab it again. Some let go and staved off a fall only by a quick close into fifth position.

  ‘Reverse into battement à la seconde; half pointe: bring legs together—’

  The movements became complex now, and the dancers marked with their hands, pressing the directions into their memory.

  ‘In fifth standing, soutenu into reverse.’

  Failures came more and more rapidly. Some girls did en dedans instead of en dehors, inward step instead of outward. Some didn’t bring their legs up before the turn. Others brought them up after the rond de jambe and fell off their balance. Some got as far as the balance but couldn’t keep their turn-out.

  Sweat was running into Steph’s eyes. Her centre was wobbling and her leg muscles were screaming but she stayed balanced and she stayed turned out. The teacher’s eyes gave her a flick up and a flick down. He clapped.

  ‘Girls put on pointe shoes, please.’

  As Steph was changing shoes a girl sat down beside her. Steph recognized the little blonde who had warmed up at the other sink in the ladies’ room. There was a sweetness in her expression that made Steph say, ‘Hello. My name’s Steph. For Stephanie.’

  The girl looked at her and smiled. ‘I’m Chris. For Christine.’ The number on her cardboard was 7. They were lacing up their shoes and there was no time to shake hands.

  ‘What a rush,’ Steph said. ‘I’ve never auditioned before. What about you?’

  ‘I’m not auditioning.’

  That baffled Steph. ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘It’s a trick on my parents—kind of. They could pay to send me to school, only they don’t think ballet’s important. But if I’m good enough to win a scholarship they’ll change their minds and let me stay in New York. I hope.’

  All sorts of wondering went through Steph. It sounded nice to have two parents and to have rich parents. But parents who didn’t want you to dance sounded awful.

  ‘I’m sorry you have parent
s like that.’

  ‘They’re all right—they’re just idiots when it comes to ballet.’

  ‘I hope you make it.’

  ‘Thanks. I hope you make it too. Merde.’ It was bad luck to say ‘Good luck’ in ballet, so you said ‘Merde’ instead, which was French for shit. Steph had learned that from her teachers. Chris pronounced the word as though she had studied French.

  ‘Merde,’ Steph said.

  For centre work the teacher divided the candidates into odds and evens. Steph was even. She watched the odds’ adagio, the slow, flowing movements. Some of the girls had flawless arabesques and extended their leg in développé straight to their ear.

  I’m not that good, she thought, but when it came evens’ turn she tried harder than she’d ever tried in her life, and she was almost that good.

  The teacher put them through pirouette combinations and the little jumps of petit allegro and the great leaps of grand allegro. ‘Here’s where we separate the boy from the girls,’ he said, and he gave the girls fouettés and hops en pointe. Then it was the boy’s turn to do pirouettes a la seconde. The girls sat against the walls and watched.

  ‘It’s too bad he’s not better,’ Chris whispered.

  ‘It’s too bad he’s not even good-looking,’ Steph whispered.

  ‘He’ll pass though, won’t he?’

  ‘Sure. There are never enough boys in ballet school.’

  The audition went on an hour. The teacher consulted his notebook. ‘Please step to the left as I call off your number.’

  He did not call off 7, and Steph felt a pang as Chris was left standing on the right. But he didn’t call off 28 either, and the boy stayed on the right, and he didn’t call off 32, and Steph was left with them. The teacher glanced at the larger group.

  ‘You may go.’

  And then at Chris and Steph and the boy and the twelve others standing on the right.

  ‘Come back Thursday, same time.’

  Thursday, on the reception desk, a huge sign with hasty-looking letters reminded visitors that points beyond were absolutely off limits. No one else paid it any attention; Anna didn’t see why she should.

  She pressed past the desk with its one frantic attendant, squeezed through the churning mob. The narrow stairway opened onto a corridor of grey-carpeted walls with observation windows that looked down into the studios.

  ‘Coming through, please! Let me through! I’ve got a girl down there!’

  She pushed her way to a front position at the studio 3 window. Four free-standing barres had been placed like police barricades across the floor. Six dozen girls in tights and leg warmers were limbering up. All she could hear were the muffled strokes of a piano, fistfuls of the ‘Pizzicato Polka’ from Sylvia that seemed to come from two blocks away.

  Her eye searched for Steph.

  A clear slanting sun fell through the windows, flattening the girls to silhouettes with bands of light flickering around the edges. They all looked the same. Anna squirmed to a better position, squinted down at the mirrored wall. Suddenly a movement at the centre barre tugged her eye.

  There she was!

  That frail little girl all by herself, practising quick, tiny jumps—that had to be Stephanie. Her golden hair was drawn back, fastened with a tortoise-shell barrette.

  Anna could feel the child’s concentration, her hope and terror. She wished she could reach and touch her and whisper, ‘It’ll be all right—you’ll make it!’ But it was a mother’s business to know such things—and to keep silent; for the moment, the girl needed all the terror she could muster.

  It was beautiful to watch Steph’s feet. They fell so lightly, not even striking the floor, but skimming it like a breeze.

  Now Steph stood free of the barre. Even with her hands on her hips, her arms were rounded, the hands continuing the delicate line. She relevé’d up onto the toe of the left foot. The right leg lifted and bent inward, the foot curving up to touch the left knee. How many students, Anna wondered, could curve their feet like that!

  The arms extended up and out like arching wings. Plié now—the body dipped, the supporting leg bent at the knee. The free leg whipped out to the right. The girl spun clockwise, full circle. Anna counted the fouettés: one, two, three....

  Six fouettés! Six perfect fouettés—for practice!

  Anna wished Volmar had seen that!

  The dazzling blur that was Steph spun to a stop, came to rest in fourth position: right foot sur la pointe, left foot perfectly turned out, arms arched overhead with hands barely grazing fingertips.

  The girl turned. Her profile was clear and sharp against the window.

  Anna’s heart gave a painful thump against her ribs. It was not Steph, not her girl at all. It was that pug-nosed, chicken-breasted little creature who’d been hogging the other sink in the ladies’ room before audition.

  It took a long moment for the shock to subside and then Anna was able to smile at her mistake. What a laugh, she thought. That kid would never make it. Terrible arms. No port de bras.

  In studio 3, sixty-five girls and ten boys nervously warmed up for the final audition. The barres were overflowing with dancers, and anything else that could stand still was pressed into service—the piano, chairs, window sills, even girls and boys offering shoulders and hands to one another. The room was a jungle of stretching limbs and bending torsos and waving arms and bodies that popped twirling into the air.

  On the stroke of ten the door opened.

  Through the jungle, clearing a narrow path of stillness, came the judges, single file. They took their places on wooden chairs in the front of the room, blocking the mirror.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Chris pointed unobtrusively.

  ‘Dorcas Amidon,’ Steph said. ‘She’s on the board.’

  The two girls recognized the others from photographs: Marius Volmar, whose face seemed to relax naturally into a scowl; and Jean-Pierre Bonnefous and Patricia McBride, the husband-and-wife team from New York City Ballet—he was even handsomer than his pictures; she had a girlish beauty and a kind smile, yet neither of them looked as though they wasted a minute or a judgement.

  ‘I never believed they were real,’ Chris whispered.

  ‘I still don’t,’ Steph said. She could feel waves of authority radiating from the four. Nervousness began creeping up from her feet.

  A dapperly dressed man strode to the front of the room.

  ‘He’s the dance master with NBT,’ Chris whispered. ‘There was an article on him in Dance News. He’s supposed to be a real terror.’

  He looked like a terror, Steph thought. He did not need to clap his hands or clear his throat for attention. His very posture, the energy focused through his narrow eyes, commanded silence; and the silence crushed the room. He introduced the judges, thanking McBride and Bonnefous for volunteering their time and expertise.

  The candidates applauded. Steph felt odd, as though she were applauding her own executioner.

  The candidates were divided into groups of fifteen. Those not auditioning sat against the walls, watching the routine and marking it. From the very first plié Steph could tell today was going to be tough.

  ‘Jerry Zimmerman’s a real pianist,’ Chris whispered. ‘He played Other Dances last night, with Baryshnikov and Makarova.’

  Steph had never seen Other Dances, but she knew it was one of Jerome Robbins’ piano ballets, with the piano onstage. She daydreamed that someday she would call those people Misha and Natasha and Jerry. After all, ballet was a first-name world.

  But then she saw how difficult the tendu combinations were, and she thought, with a pang of despair, Maybe they’ll always be last names to me.

  The barre work was longer than before. The adagio had more balances and turns. The petit allegro was quicker, with five and six beats of the feet during some of the jumps. The grand allegro called for full extensions in the air and feather-soft landings.

  The judges took notes on large yellow note pads. From time to time one of them leaned to
whisper something in another’s ear. Steph could not tell from their eyes what they were thinking or even which dancers they were watching. Their eyes took everything in, let nothing out. They were experienced eyes, exacting eyes, and they frightened her.

  Chris’s group was called, and Steph whispered, ‘Merde.’

  Chris was nervous and it showed. She rushed combinations, finishing ahead of the music. The pirouettes were weak and twice she turned en dedans instead of en dehors.

  Yet for all the nervousness, the basics were there. The movement of the arms was graceful. The feet stayed arched and the spine never stiffened. She moved lyrically, even in the mistakes. Steph envied her balance in arabesque: without the slightest hint of rush or unsteadiness, Chris extended fully, and it seemed she could have held the position for all eternity.

  Marius Volmar motioned the dance master over and whispered to him.

  ‘Girls, if you please,’ the dance master said, ‘we’ll take that arabesque balance once again.’

  When Chris came back to sit Steph whispered, ‘Volmar likes you. I saw him whisper to Pat McBride.’

  Chris was fretful and fidgety. She pulled roughly at her laces.

  ‘I danced like an elephant.’

  ‘You were wonderful!’ Steph cried.

  ‘No. I was nervous.’

  What Steph felt was worse than nervousness. By the time her group was called her body was tense and her développés weren’t anywhere near what they’d been in rehearsal and her balances wobbled like sick gyroscopes.

  ‘I flunked,’ she whispered to Chris afterwards.

  ‘But you were beautiful!’ Chris said.

  Steph stared at the blue eyes, wide set in the pink-white face, and she saw the utter honesty of a child. They sat together against the wall and waited through the last group and then they waited in throat-choking silence for the verdict.

  Patricia McBride seemed to be totalling up points on her pad. Marius Volmar sat with his arms crossed as though his mind were made up. Dorcas Amidon and Jean-Pierre Bonnefous conferred, whispering. Occasionally a glance or a pencil pointed. Heads nodded. Heads shook. Faces did not smile.

  The room seemed very small and tight and hot. Watches could be heard ticking in pockets or bags.