by Adam Thorpe
I went back into my bedroom with the slippers and fished out the ballet book, flicking quickly past the photograph of the Coppélia dancer staring out. The right picture was at the end, where the technical aspects were explained. There was a picture of a ballerina rubbing the toe of her shoe in something called a Rosin Box – it looked like an empty wooden tray. Perhaps there was resin in it and that was why they smelt of pine-trees, I thought, holding them to my nose again. But resin was very sticky: it had taken a lot of soap to get it off my fingers.
Anyway, these were definitely Carole’s old ballet slippers, from when she was about nine or ten, I guessed – unless she had very small feet at thirteen, when she stopped. I didn’t know much about girls’ feet. The toes of the slippers on the outside were blackened and shiny, as if they had been rubbed a lot by wooden floors.
It made me want to read the rest of the Coppélia story, finding the ballet slippers. I sat on the rug and found the right page and began to get goose-bumps, because the story kept reminding me of Carole. They were real goose-bumps, I could see them on my thighs, exactly like the cold flesh of the plucked birds in Christophe’s shop.
Swanilda was truly terrified, trapped behind the curtains with the mechanical doll. It was so lifelike! The eyes of emerald did glitter so!
There was a commotion, then she heard a voice. Franz’s voice!
Siwanilda peeped through the curtains. Franz, had climbed the ladder once more. Dr Coppélius was waiting for him beyond the balcony. The toymaker’s tough little fingers had poor Franz’s ear between them.
‘So – thieve me dry, would you?’
Franz pointed to the curtains, where a velvet shoe was showing. ‘There! There she is! The one I love! She for whom I have come! Your daughter! Coppélia! Coppélia!’
Dr Coppélius released Franz’s ear straightaway. He rubbed his nose thoughtfully. He said: ‘Of course, dear boy! Of course you can see my dear sweet Coppélia. But first, let us drink a toast to her beauty. ’
The lovesick lad drank the toast “without hesitation. The wine tasted of almonds. Moments later he was slumped on the table in a deep sleep. Dr Coppélius wheeled out his finest, loveliest creation from behind the curtains, took his magician’s book and opened it at the right page. It was not enough to be a dollmaker of genius: what he craved was to be a proper magician. To make his dolls stir with the magic spark of life.
Thus ambition overreaches itself, eternally dissatisfied. Thus hunger consumes its own hand.
He waved his arms over Franz and murmured the appropriate words. And it took only a few handfuls of the sleeping lad’s spirit, plucked from his electrical aura, to bring Coppélia alive.
She twitched in the chair, stood up, and raised her arms. Dr Coppélius sprinkled another handful of Franz’s aura on her fair hair. He was overjoyed to see the bloom in her waxen cheeks, the flush upon her smooth arms, the smell of warm skin upon her neck.
Then – how she danced!
Dr Coppélius yet thought: Her movements are still stiff, they betoken the doll, she does not move like water over pebbles, like a living being.
Bent over his spell-book again, heart racing, the man did not notice what was happening to his doll.
Softly, gracefully, she did start to melt into the movements of a living being: her limbs, her head, her body. The living flesh discovered upon her again.
Dr Coppélius turned and saw her moving with grace, with a human ease and grace. He wept with joy. He laughed. When he handed her a mirror, to admire her loveliness in, she performed the most delightful arabesque, pirouetting like a real dancer, her leg stretched high behind her!
And then, quite suddenly, Coppélia went mad – one of those female upsets that no man can arrest. She wound the dolls up too tight, tore a page from the book of spells, tried to shake Franz awake. The doctor thrust a Spanish fan in her hand and she was instantly possessed by a sensual sarabande; he threw a tartan plaid over her and she jigged until the floorboards bounced.
And the din awoke Franz, finally. Who was met by an extraordinary sight: Swanilda, in Coppélia’s sumptuous gown, whirling Dr Coppélia about with the plaid, and all the dolls flapping like injured birds.
I looked up, realising I had gone stiff. I adjusted my legs, knees crisscrossed from the rug’s hairs, and pins-and-needles started up in my foot. I leant on one elbow and carried on.
As soon as she saw her beloved coming to, Swanilda ran behind the curtains.
From their darkness, she dragged out the real Coppélius, the head and arms flopping horribly. The doll was in her underthings, just as Swanilda had left her.
Dropped onto the floor, the lovely girl lay like a waxen corpse. And Franz was just as shocked as the old man. But while Franz realised his folly instantly, his heart flooding with love for his betrothed, Dr Coppélius took Coppélia in his arms and wept and wept, just as if he had lost a real daughter.
The brand-new bell rang out a wedding peal for Franz and Swanilda the very next day. The kindly Duke gave a purse of gold to the broken Dr Coppélius, ordering a set of clockwork soldiers in Polish uniform for the palace – with the request that they should march, and present arms, and fire them at the enemies of the Empire.
The End
I returned to my balsa-wood kit and cemented the formers to the keel of the fuselage, holding each one upright until it dried. My elbow was stiff from leaning on it while reading. I was worried my mother would discover the ballet slippers. I got up and hid them under my bolster.
Then, knowing how if I forgot to make my bed she would go ahead and make it for me, I took them out and buried them in one of my toys’ drawers under the Meccano lift, where I’d also put the two German books belonging to Monsieur Mantharl and the man in the SS. I wished I had a key for this drawer.
My uncle was in for supper that evening. He smelt strongly of drink.
‘What a day,’ he said. ‘Knackering. And that’s on good authority. Mine.’
He tucked his napkin in his collar and started eating. My mother asked him if he’d got anywhere.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ he said, with his mouth full. ‘If not, I’ll go begging in the métro and get ten times more.’
He laughed. He tore some bread and started humming his favourite song, about the man punching little holes in the lilac tickets. He seemed in a good mood. He sort of imitated punching holes in tickets, humming and chewing at the same time.
‘Did you see that person?’ asked my mother, interrupting.
‘What person?’
‘The one who knows the head of the insurance people.’
‘His wife knows the personnel manager’s wife, that’s all.’
‘Well, it’s a start. I think you should go round personally, Alain.’
‘What do you think I’ve been doing? Wandering about with two fingers up my nose?’
‘I think it’s very unfair,’ my mother insisted. ‘They’re all thieves.’
‘Why aren’t they paying?’ I asked. I pictured the man in the homburg, playing with my Dinky. Wasn’t he from the insurance?
‘Because they’re thieves,’ said my mother. ‘They take your money and run.’
‘They’re not thieves,’ growled my uncle, stripping the chicken-bone with his teeth.
‘Well, I say they are.’
‘Say that too many times and we’ll get nothing at all, my true love.’
‘They said it was fine and so you went and laid all that money out on new stock—’
‘It wasn’t in writing.’
My mother looked shocked.
‘Well, why did you lay all that money out if it wasn’t in writing?’
‘I thought it was in writing.’
‘How could you have thought it was in writing, if you didn’t have a letter?’
‘How can I eat if you keep asking me so many bloody questions, woman?’
‘Are you sure there was nothing in writing? I’m sure I saw something arrive in the post, Alain.’
&
nbsp; ‘Danielle, of course there was something in the post from the insurance people. There was quite a lot of stuff in the post from the insurance people. I got sick of stuff in the bloody post from the insurance people.’
He imitated my mother’s high voice quite well.
‘Have you checked properly?’
‘No,’ my uncle growled, ‘I just fork-lifted it onto a pallet and trucked it round to Christine Bolmont. Jesus Christ.’
There was a difficult silence then. My uncle cleaned up his plate with his bread and lit a cigarette. He made an impatient, sighing noise when he blew the smoke out. His eyes were getting baggier, I thought. He poured out some more wine for himself and drank it and I could hear it go down his throat. He sucked on his teeth with his tongue, as if there was meat stuck there. He got up and fished out the toothpicks from the cupboard and started picking his teeth, leaning against the sink. My mother and I were still finishing our rice and chicken. He started on the song again, the one by Serge Gainsbourg about the ticket-puncher, but singing the words this time. He loosened his tie and came back to his chair. He had quite a good voice and knew all the words by heart. My mother put her napkin down and stood up and started to clear the plates. I helped her. My uncle carried on singing, but quietly, twitching his head and moving his cigarette about in time.
J’fais des trous, des p’tits trous encore des p’tits trous …
Des p’tits trous, des p’tits trous toujours des p’tits trous
Des trous d’première classe
Des trous d’seconde classe …
Halfway through he stopped and nodded to himself, chuckling.
‘Bloody good, old Gainsbourg. Heard the one he’s just done with Brigitte Bardot? Bloody awful voice, she’s got. Can’t have everything, I suppose. Listen, I’m working on it,’ he went on, staring down. His hand, holding the cigarette, was trembling a bit on the table. ‘I’m locating their weak point. The gas leak. Sniffing it out. The cretins are going to pay up. If not, I’ll wring that little pot-bellied creep with his own braces until his eyes pop out.’
‘It’s one thing on top of another, that’s all,’ my mother sighed, stacking the dishwasher. ‘And all these things going on in the world.’
‘We’ve missed the news,’ I said.
‘Look, I’m going to knock that wall down, chum,’ said my uncle, looking up. ‘Then we won’t ever miss the news. We can all watch it from here. All their stupid bloody goings-on. Speaker up in the light, wire in the ceiling from the TV. We can all watch it in peace and comfort from here. Right?’
‘You’ll spoil your nice new ceiling,’ said my mother, ‘running a wire across it. You’ve still got that last polystyroid tile to do. It seems a pity.’
‘What’s a pity?’
Not to finish it off.’
‘Jesus Christ, OK,’ shouted my uncle, waving his hands about, ‘I’ll finish it off, I won’t bother with the insurance people, I’ll finish the ceiling first and then I’ll knock the wall down and I’ll wrap plastic bloody ivy round the wire so you won’t notice it a single bit and everything will be one-hundred-per-cent bloody perfect and then I’ll toddle along to the insurance people and say, “Oh, by the way, so sorry to have waited a few months to chase this one up but I had a few domestic tasks to do for the wife, don’t you know?” Eh?’
But my mother had already run out of the kitchen in tears.
14
On Saturday mornings I usually went with my uncle into Bagneux’s shopping streets. There was a brasserie on the corner – one big smoky room with red pillars and a curved sweep of plate glass looking out onto pavements and traffic. We always had a drink there before heading back.
My uncle looked smart, in the brasserie: he always went shopping in his newest sandy-brown suit, the one that reminded me of bricks, but instead of a tie he wore a thin roll-top cardigan, either yellow or cream. His cufflinks (of real silver or gold) would click on the bar’s zinc as he drank. The barman, Louis, always had the same grey sweater on and shuffled out from behind in the same tatty slippers. The coalman was there most times, completely black except for his eyes. You had to shake his hand at the wrist, but it still left stains on your fingers.
My uncle liked to talk politics. He believed that General de Gaulle wasn’t tough enough on the unions, that we should drop an atomic bomb on the Vietcong, and that foreigners who couldn’t sing the Marseillaise word-perfect should be guillotined. The way he said it, though, made everyone chuckle, as if he wasn’t serious. Even the Communist regulars chuckled.
‘A good spring-cleaning, that’s what the country needs,’ he’d say, pointing at Louis. ‘Get rid of the rotten apples before the whole crate’s ruined.’
And Louis would lift his fist in the air in agreement. Everyone laughing.
The more my uncle drank, the more he said things about women. I was terrified that he’d say something as dirty as the things I’d hear from Christophe or at school. Sometimes the things he said were, in fact, dirty, but in a way I didn’t quite understand. I would still go red and look down, though, hoping no one would notice.
Although I didn’t really understand everything, I was as red as a beetroot. I thought how shocked the priests at church would be to see me here.
The regulars were always harping on the same string, as my uncle put it. Or about three strings. One of the strings was about wives and husbands. It was always started by a cross-eyed man in blue overalls and a peaked cap, pushed so far back I always thought it was about to fall off his head. A fat woman called Bobette with hair-pins and a furry cardigan would then snap at him. I thought for a while they were husband and wife, but they weren’t. My uncle would join in, talking about ‘performance’, as if my mother was a dancer or an actress. He’d pull hard on his cigarette and say these things quietly, but his deep voice could be heard all the way along the bar.
He had this joke about a goffering iron which he’d always mention in this discussion about wives or husbands. My mother told me, when I asked her, that my grandmother used to use one; it made crimps, or little wavy frills, on the house linen. Very old-fashioned.
‘Why, dear?’
‘Oh, just something in a book at school.’
Every time my uncle said something about a ‘goffering iron’, or ‘crimps in the sheets’, the regulars would burst into laughter. He would only have to mumble ‘goffering’ in his deep boomy voice, and it would trigger off this laughter. Strangers must have thought we were mad; even I would pretend to chuckle, though I had no idea what it all meant.
At other moments he would talk about women as if he was still a young man, as if my mother was not the only woman that mattered to him. If a pretty young girl came in with someone, he would watch her; I saw him do this many times. Girls hardly ever came up to the bar, but if one did and she was close enough to talk to, he would make amusing comments. She would smile or even laugh and play along for a bit, until she went away with her cigarettes or sat down at a table nearby. Then he’d look sad and thoughtful, drinking from his glass or drawing on his cigarette with his head tilted right back, as if looking for an answer in something on the ceiling. Meanwhile, I’d sit on my high stool with my elbows on the zinc and my red grenadine syrup in front of me, watching the syrup coiling through the water as I poked it with the plastic stirrer. And he would turn to me and mess up my hair or give me a soft jab with his elbow and say, ‘You’re very quiet, junior,’ or ‘Cheer up, chum, it’s Christmas in nine months.’ And then turn away and buy someone a drink.
On one of these Saturdays, there were two coincidences. Or rather, the second one made the first one into a coincidence.
It was the Saturday after I’d discovered the ballet slippers. It had been miserable weather all week and we had to jump puddles on the edge of the road. My uncle was louder and jollier in the brasserie and drank more Byrrh, along with a glass or two of beer. His skin was reddening as if he had been in the South, and his eye pouches were baggier. He’d been too busy to go shopping
on Saturday mornings for three or four weeks, and he told everybody that he had been to New Caledonia. He said how hot it was and how white and empty the beaches had been. Even I almost believed him.
Then the man in the homburg hat came in through the glass door, dressed in a smart brown coat and scarf and with a spotted tie. I saw him straightaway. My uncle had his back turned, talking to Louis. The man kept his homburg on but stopped dead halfway to the bar, looking surprised to see us. I started to tell my uncle that his friend was here. When I looked up, the man was out of the door and hurrying away around the corner.
‘Whassat, kid?’
‘The insurance man was here. He’s gone now, though.’
‘Eh?’
‘Your friend, in the homburg hat, the one who liked my Dinky—’
At that moment a young girl with a pony-tail came up next to my uncle and he started to chat with her. She laughed and showed her gums. Her teeth were big and more pointed than most people’s, almost like an animal’s. She was very pretty, though, even with her strange teeth. I wondered why the homburg man had looked so shocked on seeing my uncle. Perhaps he was one of the robbers, after all, and my uncle didn’t know it. He was really making the girl in the pony-tail laugh, now. Her lips were right back above her gums and she was almost doubling up, one foot on the brass rail running along the bottom of the bar. She had a baggy sweater on with a little hole in the shoulder and sort of felty trousers. She smelt of old pillows and motor-oil.
‘Bohemian,’ said my uncle, when she’d gone back to her table. There were young men at her table, looking serious, with floppy fringes and spectacles. ‘But an attractive member of the species, eh? Good sense of humour. Wasted on those gippos.’
‘The man who liked my Dinky, in the showroom, he just came in and went out again.’
My uncle blinked at me and then turned his head round to look. He stayed like that, swivelled round and looking, his hands flat on the bar. I could tell he was frightened from the way he was all stiff, his fingers trembling on the zinc. Then he turned back and picked up his glass.