Golden Earrings

by Belinda Alexandra

  When we were directed to enter the Salle Bailleau, I thought with excitement rather than trepidation: This is it! I was prepared. All should go well for me.

  The judging panel was sitting at a table at the front of the room. As well as the director of l’Opéra national de Paris and two independent judges, there was Raymond Franchetti, a much-admired former dancer and the current director of dance, Claude Bessy, the director of the Ballet school … and Arielle Marineau, the company’s ballet mistress. I did my best to avoid eye contact with her.

  We were given our places to commence the adagio part of the examination, which we would do together as a group to demonstrate form and strength. The Opera’s beautiful auditorium was directly below the examination room, and I imagined that I had been given a place right above the crystal chandelier. Mademoiselle Louvet had trained me to give two hundred per cent to all my exercises ‘because on the day of the examination, your nerves will cut you down to one hundred per cent’. That had been true the first time I had taken the examination, when my limbs had felt heavier than usual, but not this time. My développés, arabesques and fondus were beautiful and fluid. I felt as relaxed as if I were dancing for Mademoiselle Louvet alone. Even when we had to hold the poses for a long time, I did not lose my form.

  The first solo piece I had to perform was Aurora’s variation from Act III of The Sleeping Beauty. It was probably the purest of the classical ballets and was usually the first full evening role a ballerina performed. It was also a part that involved incredible stamina and Mademoiselle Louvet had chosen it to show the judges that I could bear the load of a professional dancer. ‘Make sure you stay present with every step,’ she had advised me. ‘Don’t be in a hurry to rush to the next one. Keep everything clean.’

  As soon as Monsieur Clary began to play and I took my first step, I knew that things would go well. ‘Think of a rose when you dance this part,’ Mademoiselle Louvet had said. My balance was perfect. Because of Mamie’s stories about Spain, I understood Aurora’s journey from innocence to womanhood; she’d had to accept that not all in the world was good.

  I finished and waited for the panel to write down their comments. Then I was allowed to go and dry off before my next piece, which was the Kitri variation from Don Quixote, Act III. I was looking forward to it because I thought I could give the part a distinctly Spanish flavour. Just as I was about to begin, the lights in the room started to blink and several of them went out. The judges looked up.

  ‘How quickly can we get that fixed?’ asked Monsieur Franchetti.

  ‘I’ll call the attendant,’ said Mademoiselle Bessy, rising from her seat.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mademoiselle Batton,’ said Monsieur Franchetti. ‘This is most infuriating during an examination, but we must take a break.’

  I went to the water fountain outside the room to take a drink.

  ‘You were beautiful,’ said Mademoiselle Louvet, touching my shoulder. She directed me away from the other students, who were gathering around the fountain. ‘Don’t let their energy distract your concentration,’ she said, leading me to a curtained-off area with a sink and a chair. ‘Wait here a moment. I’ll come and get you when they are ready.’

  I sat in the chair and took a few deep breaths, keeping my mind focused on my performance and hoping it wouldn’t take too long for the lights to be fixed. I leaned my head against the wall. The coolness of it was soothing. Then I realised I could hear voices speaking inside the Salle Bailleau.

  ‘She is delicate and lyrical,’ a woman’s voice said. ‘But she’s limited. The ballet is full of sweet dancers with good technique. Her mother was a bravura dancer — strong, powerful, exceptional in every way. From start to finish you could not take your eyes off Julieta Olivero. As her daughter, Paloma Batton is always going to be compared unfavourably to her, and that is not going to be good for her or for the ballet.’

  It was Arielle Marineau speaking about me to another judge. A nauseous feeling rose in my stomach. Suddenly all the self-doubt that I’d managed to push away came rushing back. While I no longer believed that the Paris Opera Ballet was the only company worth dancing for, I still dreamed of being an étoile. What was Marineau saying? That I was not an outstanding dancer? That I never would be? What more could I possibly give?

  Relax, I told myself, she’s just a woman who is bitter about your father dumping her! But the more I tried to calm my nerves, the worse they became. I did a pirouette to get my mind back on my next variation, but almost fell. I had never fallen in my practice, not once! I tried again. I lost my balance again. My limbs began to tremble as blind panic ran through me. I thought of Madame Genet, whose nerves had cracked the opening night of Swan Lake. Would I end up like her — creeping around the corridors of a ballet school, embittered and dreaming of what could have been?

  ‘They are ready for you,’ said Mademoiselle Louvet outside the curtain.

  ‘I’m coming,’ I told her.

  I bent over to get the blood back to my head. I’m never going to be a première danseuse. I’m always going to be in the corps de ballet. Suddenly, chills ran through my body, as though I was coming down with influenza. I straightened, closing my eyes to get rid of the white dots in my vision. When I opened my eyes, la Rusa was standing in front of me, staring at me with her dark, hypnotic gaze. My blood turned cold. Oh God, I thought. Not now!

  ‘What do you want?’ I hissed at her.

  ‘Duende,’ she whispered. ‘Let your demon help you.’

  I remembered the conversation I’d had with Jaime: duende was the ‘demon’ that possessed a flamenco dancer and transformed her performance into an extraordinary spiritual experience.

  La Rusa vanished, and at the same time so did my fear. A sense of calm washed over me. I held my head up. It no longer mattered how the panel judged me. All that mattered was that I danced from the core of my being.

  I returned to the examination room and took my place on the floor. Never had I been so poised, so in control of myself. I imagined myself the way Mamie had described la Rusa standing before her audience at the Samovar Club: majestic, dignified, captivating.

  When the music commenced, I became Kitri: vital and mischievous. I stabbed my pointes, my pas de chats were tight, every movement of my body was precise. I jumped with energy and performed the rapid turns with a spirit I had never possessed before. When I finished, I held my head high, haughty and sure of myself, not the delicate rose of the previous variation.

  When the examination was over, all the entrants curtseyed to the panel and to Monsieur Clary, then we ran outside to collapse in the corridor, breathless and panting. When the secretary came out half an hour later to post the names of the successful candidates on the announcements board, I knew mine wouldn’t be there so I didn’t bother to rush forwards with the others. I no longer cared about failing. I thought about la Rusa and the spirit that had taken over my performance. I knew that I wanted to feel that way every time I danced.

  Mademoiselle Louvet came out of the examination room. ‘The judges want to see you,’ she said.

  That didn’t sound like good news. I was sure they were going to tell me that I had danced well but not well enough to make it into the company, so I should stop trying. But when I stepped into the room after Mademoiselle Louvet, the judges turned around and applauded.

  ‘Bravo, Mademoiselle Batton!’ said the director of l’Opéra national de Paris. ‘You are not only highly polished, you have incredible charisma. And that’s not something anyone can teach, although we compliment Mademoiselle Louvet on what she has done with you.’

  Charisma? I was astonished. No one had ever described me as ‘charismatic’ before. ‘Beautiful’ and ‘delicate’, but never more than that.

  ‘The energy you emanated was contagious,’ said Franchetti enthusiastically. ‘Last year we felt you were holding something back from us. But this year you gave us everything.’

  ‘You’ve been accepted into the corps de ballet,’ said Claude Bessy, w
ho had championed me from the beginning and made all the exceptions for me to take the examination for the second time through the school. ‘You’ve achieved exactly what you wanted.’

  I did my best to respond to their comments courteously, despite my utter surprise at the result. I thanked them and turned to leave. Before I reached the door, Arielle Marineau stepped forward. Our eyes met. The other judges turned to one another and started to talk and gather their papers.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said. ‘I look forward to working with you. If you keep giving me performances like the one in your second variation, you won’t be in the corps de ballet long. You are star material.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, not quite able to take in what I was hearing. But while her praise sounded sincere, I detected a touch of frostiness in Arielle Marineau’s manner. She’d been able to rise above her prejudice on this occasion, but I could not afford to get off on a bad foot with the ballet mistress over something that had happened in the past. ‘I believe that you may have some ill feelings towards my father,’ I told her. ‘I hope it won’t get in the way of our relationship. He and I are estranged.’

  ‘Your father?’ she said, looking genuinely surprised. ‘Why would I have ill feelings towards your father? The man is a saint!’

  Although I was exhausted after the examination, we celebrated my success with a flamenco party in Mamie’s studio. I was surprised when Mamie joined Carmen in a slow gypsy tango. I almost begged her to stop on account of her heart, but the doctor had said that mild exercise would be good for her and she seemed to be enjoying herself.

  I recalled that she’d had flamenco lessons from la Rusa. I was shaken by my second encounter with the ghost. But I was puzzled too. La Rusa hadn’t given me the impression that she was a malevolent spirit. Nor did I feel that she wanted something from me. If anything, she had helped me. But the same question remained: why?

  Of course, the other thing that was bothering me was what Arielle Marineau had said about my father. What did she mean he was ‘a saint’? Those weren’t the words of a woman scorned.

  The following afternoon, I went to my father’s apartment in avenue de l’Observatoire. The concierge telephoned Audrey. After a moment’s pause, he turned to me. ‘Madame says to go up.’

  I walked up the fleur-de-lis-carpeted stairs to the second-floor landing, where Audrey was waiting for me. She was wearing a powder-blue jumpsuit with white beads and white platform shoes. Her dark hair was teased up behind her white headscarf. Even though it was Saturday, she wore winged eyeliner, thick black mascara and pale pink lipstick. She looked like an aging Bond girl. But I didn’t want an altercation with Audrey today.

  ‘I’d like to see Papa, please,’ I said to her.

  Audrey didn’t reply. She opened the door for me and I followed her into the hallway. The apartment was as chic as I had expected, with terracotta stone floors and ornate moulded ceilings. The white walls were classic raised-panel wainscoting, but the furniture and art were modern. There was a framed print of Tretchikoff’s Fighting Zebras above the mantelpiece in the sitting room, which must have been a talking point because the artist was considered by many as rather kitsch. The thing that took me by surprise was that Audrey’s company appeared to occupy most of the space in the apartment. There was an office for her, plus another two rooms containing desks for employees and filing cabinets. There was a small boardroom too. I hadn’t realised that Audrey ran her business from home.

  My father was reading in a room at the rear of the apartment. Audrey obviously hadn’t warned him I was coming. She ushered me into the room and shut the door behind me.

  Papa appeared more tired than surprised to see me. He didn’t stand up and kiss me. He didn’t offer me a seat, but I took the armchair opposite him anyway. He looked more like his old self in his reading glasses and jeans. There were cat hairs on his sweater. I glanced around the room and spotted a tiger-striped tabby curled up on the windowsill.

  ‘I passed the examination yesterday,’ I said. ‘I’ve been accepted into the corps de ballet.’

  ‘Good,’ Papa said matter-of-factly. ‘You deserve it.’

  When he didn’t say anything more, I was stumped. The Ballet represented everything I had been working towards since I was eight years of age. Papa took off his glasses, as if he were impatient to hear what I’d come to say.

  ‘The apartment is very nice,’ I told him.

  He nodded. ‘It’s a bit showy, but half of it belongs to Audrey’s company and I guess publicity is all about image. I have a music studio the next floor up.’

  ‘It must have a nice view.’

  He nodded again but made no attempt to elaborate.

  I rubbed my hands on my skirt. ‘I met Arielle Marineau after the examination yesterday. She said she thought you were a saint. I guess that means that you didn’t dump her for Mama. But something happened … something more than old rivalry. Otherwise she wouldn’t have rejected me so unfairly on my first attempt.’

  Papa looked away.

  ‘Please tell me,’ I said. ‘I’d like to know the truth.’

  My father gave a gruff laugh. ‘Would you, Paloma? You don’t want the truth. You want to live in fantasy land, just like your mother.’

  His words stabbed at my heart. But I stayed calm.

  ‘Mamie told me everything that happened in Spain,’ I ventured. ‘It was terrible to hear it, but it made me appreciate her much better and also realise how much I have to be grateful for. I think the truth is good.’

  Papa sighed and shook his head. ‘Really, Paloma,’ he said, ‘it’s much better for you to go on believing that I am a bastard.’

  I felt myself pale. In the same way I had sensed I was going to hear something terrible about Margarida, I now began to suspect that there was something about Mama I didn’t know. I lost my courage at that. Perhaps Papa was right: it was better that I didn’t know. Mama was my heroine, my ideal. But I’d set the ball rolling now.

  ‘Your mother and I …’ Papa began. ‘Well, we loved you very much. In fact, you were the reason we stayed together as long as we did.’

  ‘But you weren’t happy together?’ I asked.

  I looked into my father’s face and saw that it was true. If I was honest with myself, I had sensed it a long time ago. They were not the perfect couple. Mama had seemed happiest when Papa was away, and my father had toured more than his true nature would have wanted.

  ‘I loved your mother,’ he said. ‘But she didn’t feel very much for me other than as the father of her child. When you were away at ballet school, our lives were empty. She didn’t like me being around, but she didn’t want a divorce either in case it hurt you. We went on for years like that.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t understand what it was like for you.’

  Papa looked surprised that I was handling an ugly truth so well, but he pursed his lips before continuing. ‘No, because you adored your mother. In your eyes she was everything.’

  I nodded. ‘But I loved you too, Papa. And it doesn’t explain why Arielle Marineau held a grudge against me.’

  Papa looked away from me again. Mama, I thought, what did you do?

  ‘Please,’ I insisted. ‘I want to understand.’

  Papa hesitated, then said, ‘Your mother … well, she and Christophe Valois … they had an affair.’

  Christophe Valois, the choreographer? Arielle Marineau’s long-time lover? Of all the things I had heard in the last few months, this shocked me the most. My mother had an affair? She must have been very discreet, I thought, because although the ballet world thrived on gossip, I hadn’t heard even a hint of this.

  ‘For how long?’ I asked.

  ‘About four years before she became ill.’

  ‘And when did you meet Audrey?’

  ‘The year before your mother died. She organised the publicity for my Australian tour. Her husband had suffered multiple sclerosis and died of complications a few years before we met. We began tal
king and we found we had a lot in common. We both love animals. Audrey is a volunteer fundraiser at the Société Protectrice des Animaux.’

  I felt as if my life was constantly being torn down and reconstructed. I hadn’t known I had a Spanish cousin; I hadn’t known about Mamie’s family; I hadn’t known my mother had been having an affair. I hadn’t known even trivial things about the woman my father was now married to: that she helped abandoned animals and liked kitsch art. I began to wonder if Audrey was to my father what la Rusa had been to Xavier.

  ‘But you were still with us when Mama was ill,’ I said. ‘You took her to her medical appointments. You were there until she died.’

  Papa stood up and stared out the window. ‘That’s because that bastard Valois abandoned her and went back to Arielle as soon as it was confirmed that Julieta had cancer. She was alone with only you and Mamie. Your grandmother was in pieces, and you were too young to go through all of that on your own.’

  ‘But what about Audrey?’

  ‘She encouraged it,’ he replied. ‘“You must put your daughter first,” she told me. “She’s so young and this is a terrible thing to have happened.” She’d seen how hard it was for Pierre to witness his father’s slow, painful death.’

  ‘Audrey let you pretend that you and Mama were still happily married! Why?’

  ‘I think she hoped that one day you would be the daughter she had always wanted but never had. I don’t think many women would have behaved so nobly.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘No, not many women would put a man’s wife and daughter first even in that situation.’ I looked up at him. ‘Is that why you married so quickly after Mama’s death? To make it up to her?’