Letters from Yelena

by Guy Mankowski

  I was nervous about meeting her in person, but for once, my father was there for me. During a rare afternoon alone together he told me I shouldn’t allow this setback to prevent me from pursuing ballet further. In the past few months he had seen his daughter change from someone stoical and driven to someone whose failure had started to corrode her. There had been times that I had cursed my sister, screamed in frustration at my father, and quietly threatened Bruna. Looking back, this time was a crossroads. Many people are not fortunate enough to go the right way, and I believe their lives can become one long bitter lament at having taken the wrong road. My father knew how pivotal this moment was, and he wanted me to meet this new and rather exotic sounding teacher at the first opportunity.

  In the end I met Natalya on the first day that she began at the school. On entering the dance studio, I was surprised to meet a pale and slightly disconsolate woman in her late twenties. The first time I saw Natalya she was standing by the window looking over the school courtyard, with a rather melancholy expression on her face. It was only after the lesson that my father told me that injury had prevented her fulfilling her promise at the Mariinsky, and had pushed her towards a life of teaching instead.

  As Natalya turned to face me, I saw that she wore her long, dark hair in a lose knot at the side of her head. As my father introduced us, Natalya looked at me with sympathy. I think she had already picked up on the aggression of my ambition, and I wondered if she thought it naïve.

  On my father’s insistence the elderly music teacher was summoned as I demonstrated my barre work. Although I was a little rusty I could see Natalya’s eyes widen as I threw myself into the dancing. She lit a cigarette and inhaled it deeply as I went through the sequences, with her instructing me when to plié, tendu and glissé. My energy started to imbue the piano music, keeping up with the momentum even when she interrupted the sequence. After the barre work was completed I was sweating, and I suddenly realised I had given it my all. Still standing by the window, Natalya narrowed her eyes and lit another cigarette. ‘Let’s do some jumps from the centre,’ she said, and before I knew it she was rushing me through from small jumps to the great, grand allegros, which require you to be at full stretch. My father pursed his lips, leant against the wall, and I sensed him refraining from speaking. Eventually Natalya waved at the teacher to stop playing.

  ‘How long have you been dancing for?’ she asked, moving over to me.

  ‘Since she could walk,’ my father said, from the back wall.

  Natalya ordered me over to the barre, and as I went en pointe her hand brushed against the back of my calf, and against the small of my back. ‘Neck up,’ she said. I could smell the cigarette smoke as I tried to hold the position without quivering. ‘Who told you to land like that?’ she asked. Her fingers traced the straightening of my neck.

  ‘Therese, my last ballet mistress.’

  ‘Right.’ Her hand brushed down my back, and I felt a quiver of electricity flow through me. I suddenly felt an inexplicable devotion to her. ‘She sounds like bad news,’ she muttered.

  Eventually, when the cigarette had finished, Natalya resumed her position at the window.

  ‘Well?’ my father asked.

  ‘Technically, Mr Brodvich, Yelena does have potential. But to be honest technicality is only a small part of being a ballerina. She has a great deal to learn, and she doesn’t have much time in which to do it. You see, a ballerina doesn’t only act the role, she also has to live it with her very essence. I don’t know if it will be possible for her to do that with so little time.’

  ‘Will you try?’ my father asked.

  Natalya looked me up and down. I raised my neck again, as she had just shown me how to.

  She sighed. ‘I’ve not decided yet,’ she said and turned to face me. ‘You can certainly dance, Yelena, but I need to see how you respond to the drama, the fire, the passion of ballet. Only then can I properly see if you have what it takes.’

  I had no idea what she meant, but I was soon to find out. The Ukrainian National ballet in Kiev was about to open with a season of one of the most famous ballets, Giselle. To my delight, one day after a particularly quiet practice Natalya told me that she had secured tickets for us to go together on the opening night.

  ‘I can only know if you have what it takes after I have seen your reaction to this show,’ she said, rather cryptically, and she would not be drawn any further on the matter.

  I didn’t know at the time that my father had had to pay her a good deal to take this trip with me. The trip would require a fifteen-hour overnight train journey, with the two of us in one another’s company for every moment. It would certainly be a great adventure for me, but I was yet to see what it would be to her.

  On the train journey there, the conversation between us was rather halting. But this slightly withdrawn woman suddenly opened up when we came onto the subject of dance. It was as though through dance we were finally able to fully address one another. As she spoke, with flickering eyes that seemed to replay potent memories, I sensed that I had found someone with a similar soul – troubled, and yet strangely determined.

  Natalya explained, while the world outside the windows grew darker, that Giselle is split into two acts. In the first act, the lead character of Giselle must play a simple and rather innocent country girl who’s being courted by two men – one of whom she falls deeply in love with. But at the end of the first act she learns that he is engaged to another woman of noble blood, and as a result she dies of a broken heart. In the second act she then has to play Giselle’s spirit, communicating with the living from the other side. She has to be ghostly, and yet loving too. Its demand for technical perfection, and also great dramatic skill, meant it was the ultimate role for any ballerina to play.

  It was the first time I had visited a truly historic theatre house. The venue seemed to come directly from the pages of one of the fairy tales that my mother had often read to me as a girl. The Odessa Theatre was a circular, silvery grey building decorated elaborately with statues and pillars. Passing through the great entrance it opened out into a rich array of red seats and gold stalls. Natalya had seen her first national ballet here too, and as we took our seats I could see her start to become a teenage girl again, experiencing it all for the first time.

  When the curtain finally rose it revealed a woodland scene. The Giselle who danced on stage was clearly an innocent, unworldly presence, and far more vulnerable than she is yet to realise. Her mother, who flits from a nearby cottage to watch over her, is protective of her fledgling daughter, because she believes her heart to be weak. I instantly saw shades of myself in the fragile and vulnerable Giselle. In the first act, Giselle was desperate to escape the restrictions of her home, and as the drama unfolded I felt as if it was my story that was being told through the performance. I shared Giselle’s joy when a noble man came to her door and courted her. When a hunting party came to her village Giselle was in awe of one of the noblewoman’s fine clothes, and she gratefully received a gift from her. At this point she did not know that this woman was already engaged to the man she loved. Her other admirer, a humble gamekeeper called Hilarion, found the sword of Albrecht, the man she loved, and in showing it to her confirmed his identity as an engaged nobleman. Giselle had refused her mother’s warnings, which had implored her not to trust a man and fall in love.

  Sat in the stalls, I felt something take hold of my heart as the reality of Albrecht’s deception unfolded. Where she had first danced lightly, with a simple joy for living, she was now ravaged by betrayal. At this moment, the character seemed to tap into a fear that had existed inside me for a long time; one that I had never before brought to light. That vaulting feeling when you realise that the purity of any love you feel for another is not somehow over-arching. For all its virtues, it can be easily transcended by experience. I watched in horror as Giselle was torn apart by the realisation that her purity was of limited value. She tore at her hair, and the ruthless, wild momentum of the truth
threw around her tiny body. I felt tears streak my face as the unfolding spectacle carved a place in my heart. Never before had I seen the power of performance at its most raw – its capacity to speak to us, without words, about the darkest truths not only of ourselves but others too. I had never guessed at how possible it was to make a public spectacle of private trauma.

  During the interval I was mute. Natalya remarked that I looked as if I had seen a ghost, and in a way I had – I had seen a reflection of myself on stage, more nuanced than I could have written myself. I felt that Giselle had been written for me, that this evening contained in it a message from fate that somehow this play would come to mirror my life. At the close of the first act I also felt utterly terrified by Giselle’s madness as she became undone. I was terrified that in dark moments I would become plagued by it too. Until now I had felt comforted by the fact that there had been little sign of this in my own life, and yet Giselle’s fall from grace had been so sudden and brutal. Natalya had brought me here to show me the power of ballet, and she had certainly succeeded. As we found our seats for the second act I started to ask myself if I was Giselle, and the play mirrored my life, then what did it have to teach me?

  The curtain rose to reveal a woodland scene at night, which was bathed in silver lighting. It didn’t occur to me that Natalya might be watching for my reaction, examining me in every moment. In the distance, white lights flickered and faded away. Giselle floated onto the stage, her dancing unnerved by these illuminations. Natalya had told me that they signified the arrival of a horde of female spirits known as the Wilis. The Wilis, Natalya had said, were the ghosts of women who had been jilted at the altar. As one, they rose from their graves at the dead of night and encircled any man foolish enough to be in the forest at that time of night. I harboured a bitterness inside me for Bruna, and had always feared what that would lead to. I was afraid of what the Wilis would signify, and in this performance, my fears were being expressed. As they arrived on stage, countless ballerinas whose movements expressed their murderous intent, they illuminated my current fears.

  They faded back into the silver light. Then, as the stage lights dimmed, Albrecht arrived on stage and laid flowers at Giselle’s grave, begging for forgiveness. I felt my body tighten as Giselle returned to the stage, now dressed in white. I watched as she readily forgave the man who had betrayed her and as the two of them, haunted by their bond, began to dance again. I felt like something inside me was being drawn out – thin as a gossamer thread, yet strong enough to never break. I was realising something about love that my immature mind had never understood before; that the world we live in rarely gives us the means by which to fully express our love, with all its myriad intricacies. Sealed apart from her lover by death, Giselle was required to connect with him from a spiritual place, but somehow, in some illogical way, Albrecht was able to sense that such a connection was being made. I thought that perhaps only in the greatest works of art can we recognise a mysterious process which transcends reason. And yet looking at the tightened expression on Natalya’s face, I saw that each of us recognised that pain – the idea that it sometimes takes some elusive, ill-defined process to truly communicate how we feel. To see such resonant, grand and yet intimate sentiments expressed through dancing terrified as much as inspired me.

  I need barely tell you, Noah, how accurate my fears of this play representing my life are. Like me, Giselle finds the bravery to interact again with those who have been the source of great pain.

  The Wilis then returned to the stage, and building in speed they encircled Albrecht and forced him to dance. Led by their commanding Queen Myrtha, they caught him in their relentless pull, forcing him to mimic them. It was then that Giselle arrived on stage, and begged Myrtha to spare him. She refused, but Giselle was not to be dissuaded. She resisted the pull of the Wilis, and the temptation to be vengeful like them. She came amongst the Wilis and begged them to spare Albrecht, and her insistence, her devotion, eventually persuaded them to leave him and fade into the silver again. In the final, delicate sequence, we watched as Giselle slowly returned to her grave.

  When the cast came out for the curtain calls, I felt as if I was in pieces. I knew then that I had found my calling, and as Natalya applauded and cheered with the rest of them, I saw that the colour had returned to her face. I knew then that my destiny in life was to dance Giselle.

  As we began to file out, I felt Natalya’s hand at the small of my back. ‘What did you think?’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Of course you don’t, I could see how you felt merely by glancing at your face. Yelena, I would be happy to tutor you.’

  I threw my arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. She laughed, but a moment later her body tensed, and I recovered myself.

  In the months that followed I was utterly in awe of Natalya. I would watch, awestruck, at her huge jumps and soft, catlike landings. Due to the passion she evoked in me, I think she started to come to life again as well.

  She helped me rediscover my love of dance, while also teaching me the true rigours of it. I learnt that although I had never been low on effort, I had suffered from a lack of necessary training. At my first audition I had tried as hard as I could – but ultimately I had been wrong to blame myself for the eventual failure.

  Natalya taught me eight routines that became my bread and butter. I practiced them night after night, until I eventually started to satisfy her with my accuracy. My only goal was to impress her, and it gradually seemed that I was. Being in a new town, she started to need me as much as I needed her. After all, I validated her decision to spend a term teaching at some small Ukrainian town, after the glamour of her past. I made her sense of failure at having to teach disappear, because I made the value of her teaching clear. It was transforming my life, day after day, right in front of her eyes.

  After a while I learnt those eight routines so well that Natalya and I moved closer to becoming equals. Sometimes, after a particularly long session, I would sense something in her expression. It was one of admiration, and slight envy. I saw, in the widening of her eyes, that she was witnessing something for the first time. Natalya started to use words like ‘talent’ and ‘ability’ when talking about me, words which before I had only heard used for others. Then one day, Natalya started to say that she was sure that this year I would get into the Vaganova.

  Although it was only words, I kept this wonderful secret to myself. Natalya gave me confidence – not a confidence I had pulled out of myself, but one that she allowed to bloom from the barren soil of my inner self.

  I needed to ensure Bruna was unaware of this development. If for some reason I was forced to be alone with her, it felt like a kettle had started screaming in my head and I had to instantly relieve the tension. I had no-one to talk to. Although Natalya was a confidante in one sense, I had no idea how to share my problems at home with her. So with these thoughts bottled inside me, even small, tidy little cuts allowed me to feel replenished; it transformed my state of mind just to see that small jet of blood spiral into the sink. When I danced I was able to ease the pressure out through my arms and legs, through the sheer thrill of moving to music. But when that release wasn’t there for me, the fear of Bruna caused me to reach for the razor blade time and time again. I knew that I would struggle to get lead ballerina roles if I hurt myself much more and choreographers noticed scars on my body. So in effect I had to be dancing enough so that I was rarely around her, and so not scarring my body anymore. Dancing took me away from that destructive mindset; it drove me towards something safer.

  By that point I had gone so far beyond hoping for acceptance. I had felt so battle-scarred by pain and disappointment that I didn’t dare hope. I dared not even believe that Natalya might be right. Natalya started to film my performances, and one day told me she had sent off a videotape to the Vaganova. I normally would have been angry at not having chosen the contents of the tape myself, but by then I trusted Natalya absolutely. A few days later
a letter confirmed that I would get to audition for them for a second time; a rare occurrence, I was told. Natalya promised she would be there for me from the moment I entered to the moment I left.

  That year I went to audition with a very different feeling from the sense of wretchedness I had taken there the year before. On the flight over, Natalya was an entirely different person to Therese. She found the occasion exciting, and told me that I was entitled to this, perhaps even that it was overdue. I got the sense that she herself had been preparing for this trip together for some time in her own mind. She spoke to me in a matter of fact, personal way, which she never had done before.

  ‘This is your opportunity to show the world just what you have,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have taken you on if I didn’t think that you would get in this year. You are exactly what they require, it was just that last year you were unable to show it. There will be girls there dancing, who through no fault of their own do not have the key attributes that you possess. You are physically very fit, athletic, flexible – all the things they like. You have dramatic skill too, and these people are the best in the world for recognising potential. Just go in there and show them what you can do.’

  When we arrived, some of the other girls looked at me with new eyes, as if they could now sense something different about me. This time I liked the fact that I was one of the few who did not have a parent with me, but instead a young and beautiful instructor who seemed utterly devoted to my cause.

  When the course director showed us around the academy he seemed to recognise me from the year before and said, ‘It is not often that girls return for a second try.’