by Zoë Jenny
Just as she was in a particularly difficult position, holding arabesque, her leg at a 90-degree angle, she heard Miss Clark’s voice shouting, “Get your leg up, Claire!” and in a commanding tone, “Higher!” It shattered her confidence immediately. For the rest of the rehearsal she was out of sync. Like a discord in a piece of music, she created a disharmony in the group.
Suddenly she forgot steps, the lightness disappeared and with it the smile on her face.
As an acclaimed former principal dancer, Miss Clark had no mercy. Back in her heyday she had famously danced the Black Swan. She was perceived by her students as a living legend and her training was notoriously strict. Not even the tiniest slip escaped her eagle eye. One of her practices was to hold a burning cigarette close to the thigh so the terrified girl would get her leg as high as possible.
At the end of class, Miss Clark took Claire aside, asking what was wrong with her. Claire admitted having nightmares since the 9/11 attacks and problems concentrating. “Have you lost anyone?” She shook her head. “So, what’s the problem then? Why does it concern you so much? We have no time for problems like that, Claire. If you need to see someone, then go and see someone, but don’t bring your personal problems into class. You have to compartmentalise, you know? That’s the only way to stay focused and professional. You can’t let world matters affect you like that.”
Of course there was no such thing as taking some time off at the ballet company. If she left for just two weeks she would be out forever. There were plenty of aspiring dancers out there waiting to take her place.
When Anne informed her the same evening over dinner that she was leaving Berlin to live in Hamburg with Karl, it was a slap in the face. Anne’s decision to live with Karl was hardly surprising, anyone in the family had seen that coming, but somehow Claire thought Anne would never do that to her, leave her in Berlin on her own. In her imagination they were inseparable. The two sisters, a perfect item. No man before had ever had the power to come between them. But with Karl it was different. “Don’t look like that!” Anne said. “We will visit. It’s not like we’re not going to see each other anymore.”
It hurt. Claire smiled with pursed lips. The parts were cast and she just happened to get a minor role in a film she didn’t even want to be in. It all coincided. The terror attacks, Anne’s decision to leave Berlin and her fading enthusiasm for ballet. Everything she’d built was falling apart quickly and she felt unable to stop it.
In hindsight, it was only by chance that she had opened the e-mail an old friend from ballet school had sent her. She suspected one of those impersonal e-mails containing jokes forwarded to a random list of friends, something she normally deleted immediately. She knew, however, that her friend was involved in theatre and liked quirky perfomances that weren’t mainstream. Once she went to see a performance she had choreographed, which, in Claire’s view, was a complete mess and on that evening had made her mind up that she wasn’t into experimental dance; Claire saw it as a synonym for mere lack of skill.
Therefore, when she clicked on the link, she expected some strange, edgy stuff that would at the best amuse her. But to her surprise she was immediately captivated by what she saw. A group of dancers were throwing themselves to the floor, crawling forward and suddenly flipped backwards. Then, they were spinning on their heads, before jumping through the air, light and effortless as if flying over the stage. In a sudden change of rhythm, they were moving in slow motion, trying to get out of an invisible net, in the next second they backflipped and walked on their hands, making their bodies look like they were made of rubber. It was the dynamic of their movements that was most arresting. Highly skilled, they mastered all the different dance forms. Merging elements of ballet, modern dance, acrobatics and breakdance, using every single muscle of their bodies, they created something that was beyond boundaries, something completely new. A dance like an attack.
Claire had never been particularly interested in contemporary dance, but this performance was a revelation. Compared to classical ballet, with all its rules and limits, this seemed like a huge liberation. Engrossed, she searched the internet for everything she could find about them, and came across similar dance groups and dance schools, most of them based in London.
Berlin had changed or maybe it was her, looking at the city differently. Everyone was raving about how international and open Berlin had become, but to Claire the city felt suddenly constricted. As she slogged along, she dreaded the day Anne would move out and leave her behind.
The house-warming party of one of her colleagues came as a welcome distraction. Iris had an unusual and refreshing number of friends who were not dancers. Normally, dancers only mixed with dancers and Claire was looking forward to talking to people who had nothing to do with ballet. A friend of Iris was DJing in the living room. A chandelier was hanging from the ceiling. Even if young Berliners didn’t have any furniture, for some reason they would always have a chandelier.
The spheric sound of Goldfrap, and Air’s Moon Safari filled the enormous white painted rooms. Iris had knocked down several walls. Knocking down walls and making big apartments even bigger also seemed a favourite pastime of Berliners. Almost everyone was renovating – at the party Claire saw several people with paint on their hands. Iris lived on her own and had three bedrooms and two bathrooms which were now cramped with people drinking Corona beer and cheap white wine.
A man in his mid-twenties with fair hair staggered in her direction. “I really want to fuck you,” he said, a strong smell of alcohol escaping his mouth. Sweeping away his blonde fringe he looked at her as if he had just offered her something truly amazing.
“That’s very funny,” she replied, stepping away from him. But in a sudden aggressive gesture he grabbed at her elbow, leaving a red mark on her skin. Without another word he went to the dancefloor where he made some grotesque moves, almost tumbling over.
Claire was rubbing her arm, hoping he would bang his head on the floor, when she overheard someone say, “My friend just came back from New York. A bit of rubble from Ground Zero is now more expensive then a piece from the Berlin Wall. They sell the stuff in little plastic sachets like cocaine.”
Claire turned around. The voice belonged to a small man with a nose ring and leathery skin. He looked like he had spent too much time in the sun. The woman he was talking to was very slim; Claire suspected she was a model. There was a hint of a nod and the tiniest of smiles. “The nice thing about dancers is that at least you know they shave,” she said, completely ignoring what had just been said.
Claire had had enough. She was just about to leave when someone slapped her on the shoulder. “Are you always just drinking juice?” a man with an Italian accent asked, and offered her a glass of wine. Claire explained she was still recovering from a bad hangover. “The best way to overcome a hangover is to drink even more,” he insisted.
Claire took one of his cigarettes. It tasted good with the wine. Enzo. She liked his name. He was a photographer. When she asked him what he photographed, he said dismissively, “fashion stuff”. She told him she wasn’t particularly happy with her job either.
“Maybe it’s time to change,” he said.
“It sure is,” she replied, and drank the wine in big gulps.
They left together. On the way out she saw the blonde man sunk to the floor, sleeping. People were stepping over him like he wasn’t there. In the cold November air, their breath formed white clouds.
“I’m starving,” Claire said, suddenly feeling ravenous. Following the blinking light of the TV tower, they walked towards Alexanderplatz. Enzo knew a kebab place, “the best in town,” he promised. The square was empty, except for a lonely drunk, kicking an empty beer can as he staggered along. At the kebab stand they both watched with hungry eyes the knife slicing the brown meat. Claire could feel the heat from the grill on her face. In that very moment she knew she would spend the night with Enzo. A consoling thought, and she knew he knew it too. Glances, miniseconds of movement
s, the way he removed a breadcrumb from her lips, all that was just a confirmation of their mutual agreement. There was no need to talk, no words were required, and she was surprised how straightforward and uncomplicated things between humans could be.
Enzo lived in Wedding. She had never been there before, but she heard it was a shithole. It was the last S-Bahn stop and they were the only passengers in the carriage. He took her face in his hands and opened her mouth with his tongue. From the corner of her eye she could see their reflection in the window opposite. She saw a kissing couple who could have been together forever.
He lived in a huge loft in an industrial no-man’s-land. In a gentlemanly manner he took her hand to walk over old railway tracks covered in weeds to get to the factory-like concrete building. He lived in one room, big enough to bicycle from one side to the other – his studio and living place in one. Claire couldn’t take her eyes off a big photograph of three naked women in high heels. They were walking towards her with a fearless expression, as if there was nothing in the whole world that could hold them back.
“Helmut Newton,” Enzo shouted from the other end, where he was cutting up a lime for two gin and tonics. “He is my hero.”
It was right there, in front of Helmut Newton’s three woman where Claire circled to the floor. She heard his steps coming closer. Good leather shoes, she had noticed earlier. Excellent taste, she thought. She looked up and saw the top of his head. It looked like his head was part of her body, completely embedded between her legs. His tongue flicked between her labium, then he kissed her clitoris, caressing it and sucking it gently. ‘Why not,’ she thought, and closed her eyes. ‘Why not’.
The next day she called Miss Clarke, telling her she had a bout of flu. It felt like truancy. She just couldn’t face going to training, let alone on stage. Maybe it was because she wasn’t supposed to be there that she walked along Kurfürstendamm in such a pleasantly relaxed mood, like a stranger, someone who just happened to be in Berlin for a short visit.
She looked at the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church with the snapped-off steeple. A family from England was standing there looking at the bombed facade. The father explained to his two young children what had happened there 65 years before. They looked at him as if to say, why should we care what happened such a long time ago? Claire could tell they just resented every minute of this excursion through Berlin.
“65 years is nothing,” the father said into their bland faces. “If you consider the age of the planet, it has only just happened. In relation to the universe a lifetime is absolutely nothing.” Claire was tempted to add, “And you two little shits are just two more farts on this planet – although you think you are so much more than that.”
Claire stood there feeling sorry for the father, who was smart enough not to put his kids in one of those stupid tour buses for tourists, where a man on a microphone with a heavy German accent would bury them in names and dates. He had actually bothered and made a real effort to give his impervious brood an idea of Berlin’s past. For a moment she wanted to hug him for his worthy attempt and to tell him that the intellectual decline of the next generation really wasn’t his fault.
Later that day she lost herself at the KaDeWe. In the dim light of changing rooms, trying on more and more clothes, it was like building a bird’s nest in the little cubbyhole, a perfect hiding place. Time stood still. Far away her colleagues were sweating away, stretching their limbs.
Enzo left a voicemail on her mobile phone but she didn’t reply. It had been a perfect encounter; there was nothing to add to it. Getting to know each other would almost certainly just turn a good memory into a bad one. This way Enzo would forever stay a perfect image, a moment frozen in time and, unlike her previous relationships, with no story and drama to ruin it.
It was already dark when Claire walked towards her house. For a little while she just stood there, on the opposite pavement, looking up at their window, a square of light. She put down her bags and realised she had bought almost all the clothes for Anne. For a short moment she saw her slim silhouette in the window frame, a scurrying shadow, and at that moment she knew; she was about to leave too. She had bought farewell presents.
The news that she was going to quit her job at the Berlin Staatsballett spread through her family like wildfire. Her parents called a crisis meeting in their home in Grunewald. Even Karl was there; he was now considered part of the family, with the expectation that he would soon propose to Anne.
It turned out to be the most unpleasant dinner Claire could possibly have imagined, and it ended with her leaving in tears, slamming the door behind her. No one seemed to understand or accept her decision. Her mother called her selfish and accused her of being completely blind, quitting such a prestigious place as the Berlin Staatsballett without an equal offer at another company. Her father couldn’t believe she wanted to go to London. “What is my daughter going to London for? Why can’t you go to a nice place like Paris, an elegant city at least, where we have friends?”
Most disappointing was Anne, calling her stubborn and immature. Only Karl seemed to understand, adding, “Sometimes you have to take risks in life.” But Anne looked at him fiercely, clearly saying ‘shut up!’ and, not wanting to lose his recent rise in the family hierarchy, that’s exactly what he did.
Later that evening, her uncle from Toulouse called, trying to talk some sense into her. “Think of your parents, all they have invested, the excruciatingly high fees for ballet school.”
It took all her strength to stumble the words into the receiver. “Yes, but I am not some sort of investment. I think I am allowed to do what I want with my life.”
Maybe she was just following a centrifugal force. She would have to find a new place, a life without Anne, a life without the limelight of the stage. She would go to a new city and learn other moves, other rhythms. Meet people with different names, talking in a different language. She was running on high adrenalin, keen to get out of the flat before Anne. She managed to get everything organised within two weeks. All she could feel when she took off from Tegel airport into the clouded German sky was the excitement and fear of going on an adventure.
*
Miss Zelda looked at her with a faint smile. Her disappointment was palpable. “I hope you will be strong enough for this, Claire. Some people say IVF is the most gruelling experience.”
Claire swallowed. It was as if she had betrayed her, moving on to ‘mainstream’ medicine. In Miss Zelda’s eyes she was a failure. Slowly shaking her head, she closed her file. “Good luck,” she said, and opened the door.
This time Claire didn’t look at the photos. All the smiling mothers were hanging there on the wall like trophies. Supposedly the evidence of Miss Zelda’s success. But she wasn’t part of it. At the reception Claire paid her last bill. The receptionist swiped her credit card with a bored expression. She tried not to think about the amount of money they had spent on all the alternative treatments in the last few months. But more than the waste of time and money, she felt robbed emotionally. It was as if she had let Miss Zelda down – especially as she had seemed so optimistic at first, seeing her as one of her hopefuls. Of course every patient who left without being pregnant was ultimately bad for the reputation of the clinic. It was a business, after all, and the babymakers of London were in fierce competition.
Only a few days earlier the most successful IVF clinics had been listed in The Times. Anthony didn’t hesitate and made an appointment with the clinic with the highest success rate.
“If it doesn’t work, at least we know we’ve tried everything we could.” He was right, but it was little comfort.
Claire went to Paul for the last time. Her little ritual had come to an end. This time the cafe was almost empty. Chewing a French Danish, she contemplated the term ‘unexplained infertility’. What a strange name for a medical condition. How was it possible to do all those incredible things – flying to the moon, searching the depths of the ocean for new species, but not explain what th
e hell was wrong with her, not being able to do the most basic thing in life, to conceive and reproduce? Once her body had been her friend, a reliable source of pleasure and pride. Now it had turned into her biggest enemy. Above everything, she was angry. Why was her body letting her down like that? It had a problem that didn’t even have a proper name! Unexplained. What a scam. She had done everything: massages, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, stuffing herself with healthy food. Still her body was defiant. She would almost have preferred to have some terrible medical condition that would explain why she couldn’t conceive. At least she’d have an answer, something that would be much easier to accept. Carrying a womb in her body appeared just pointless. Especially as everywhere around her was nothing but mindless procreation.
Claire put the lock of the scooter into the compartement under the seat. Since the incident with the children she had bought a new chain, one that was heavier and more difficult to cut. A day after the near-accident someone had scratched the word ‘cunt’ into the white paint of her scooter. It was just petty vandalism, but it still made her look over her shoulder as she parked it.
On Euston Road she noticed the Gothic red-brick facade of St. Pancras hidden behind scaffolding; many buildings in the area had been cleared for demolition work. Cranes were slowly moving their long necks, like giant birds picking at the earth. They were working to improve the Channel Tunnel rail link – soon people could get to Paris in just two hours. The whole neighbourhood was a vast building site, rapidly morphing into a modern shiny complex. It had always amazed her, how good London was at transforming itself, seamless and silent. Very much unlike Berlin, where they had made a great fuss about Potsdamer Platz, proud of the never-ending building site.