by Adam Thorpe
Swanilda and her friends crept on, hand in hand in a line, holding the key. They had broken in to Dr Coppélius’s workshop – I knew where I was in the story, now. They were a bit frightened. Swanilda did a sort of Nazi goosestep, tiptoeing towards a curtain on the side.
Suddenly the wheelchair rumbled out of the curtain, with Coppélia sitting in it in her big white tutu. She was reading a book. The wheelchair came on further without anyone pushing it. Then further. Coppélia’s make-up was even more like Mademoiselle Bolmont’s. I creased my eyes to see better and thought how incredibly like a real doll she looked –just like a shop dummy, in fact. The wheelchair came to a stop and she swayed forward a bit and then fell back in the chair, keeping very stiff.
Swanilda was frightened and her knees started to shake. She bent over and watched them shaking. The audience laughed. Then I realised, as Swanilda tried to wake her up, that Coppélia was a real dummy, this time: you could tell from the fingers holding the book, as well as the face. They were a bit shiny and dead.
Someone must have pushed the wheelchair on, I thought. Someone standing out of sight must have given it a push.
22
I was thinking so hard about how the wheelchair had rolled in on its own that I lost my concentration. It didn’t really come back until Dr Coppélius appeared and chased the girls out of his workshop. The robots had moved about robotically for a few moments – but I wasn’t really watching them. It was weird how my eyes could be facing in the right direction but somehow not see what went on until afterwards, because of my thoughts. Even the loud music went silent in my head. I wondered if this ever happened to anyone else and looked around me: it seemed incredible that all these faces in the dark could be floating somewhere else inside them. I shifted in my chair and tried to concentrate. The people on the stage looked bigger and brighter than us, it was amazing that I could drift off and not see them.
Something moved in the window: it was the top of the ladder. Franz was staring through the window. The clear plastic made amoeba shapes from the orangey lights. He was peering in through the window. The boy playing him was good at making faces and he got the audience laughing – or maybe it was Dr Coppélius spotting him. He hid behind the table as Franz opened the window and climbed in on his tiptoes. Then, with a sort of gasp from the audience, Franz was grabbed by the Doctor who kept slapping him on the bottom as they danced round and round the stage together. The wheelchair, with the shop dummy in it, had disappeared; I hadn’t seen it go.
Jocelyne’s mother was yawning, covering it with her hand. The lights reflecting off the stage made mauve-coloured shadows on her face. Dr Coppélius was offering Franz a drink. The Doctor went to the table and poured something from a little medicine bottle into a big blue wine bottle, then filled two glasses. They flashed in the light. There didn’t seem to be any actual liquid. Franz drank the wine back but Dr Coppélius threw it over his shoulder, making everyone laugh. I laughed, too. He did this again and then, as I knew would happen, Franz was knocked out by the drugged wine. He collapsed into a chair with his head on the table. The music changed to show this, and so did the lights. The stage turned green and blue. I noticed that my red shirt and Jocelyne’s mother’s scarf had gone almost black.
The wine bottle was knocked over by mistake as Dr Coppélius put on a scientist’s long coat. It had mathematical signs and symbols and ULTIMATE SCIENCE printed on it: it was too big for him and only his fingers poked out of the sleeves. The wine bottle rolled and rolled crookedly until it hit the leg of the table. Maybe the whole stage is on a slant, I thought, which is why the wheelchair kept on going. As if reading my thoughts, Dr Coppélius went off and came back on with the wheelchair. The shop dummy was still sitting in it with the book in its hands, rocking a bit as he pushed. I realised I had to stop thinking of it as a shop dummy, because it was meant to be Coppélia, the mechanical doll. The wheels of the chair reflected the lights as they turned.
‘Have you got a tummy-ache?’ came a whisper in my ear.
I let my face go normal immediately. Unless I creased my eyes, I couldn’t see one hundred per cent clearly. It seemed to have happened in a few weeks. She must have been looking at me out of the corner of her eye. I shook my head. Now Dr Coppélius was taking a handful of Franz’s spirit and throwing it over his dead doll in the wheelchair, its shiny fingers holding the book. I could see the title, and it was in English again. The Carpetbaggers. It was good, knowing where I was in the story, though the show was nothing like the sort of film I’d made in my own head, while reading the story.
There was a huge book lying on the floor; he bent over it and checked the spell. All of a sudden the doll moved, twitching an arm. This really shocked me. Another twitch. My heart thudded. The doll suddenly threw The Carpetbaggers away and started rising from the wheelchair. It was a real shock. I’d completely forgotten about the trick Swanilda played in the story, until that moment. I hadn’t seen her disappear behind the curtains.
Each time Dr Coppélius threw some spirit on her, that part of her body moved stiffly, like a robot. Arms first, then legs, then eyes, then shoulders. The girl playing Swanilda had a more pointed chin and nose than the real dummy, but wore the same make-up. The girl was amazingly good at pretending to be Swanilda pretending to be Coppélia in her big white tutu, moving exactly as if she had cogs and wheels inside her. It was much better than the mime artist on TV.
I wondered how many other people in the audience knew this about Swanilda’s trick, and felt clever – almost an expert. Swanilda was now goosestepping like a Nazi again – and then she bent over and showed her bottom under the tutu. I thought of what Christophe had said about ballerinas not wearing pants, but the tights hid everything. Then she collapsed and Dr Coppélius caught her, almost falling with her weight. The person in front of me scratched her hair and some curls stayed up, blocking my view a bit. I sat up straighter and felt Jocelyne’s mother turning her face towards me. I tried to look intellectual as Swanilda pretending to be Coppélia danced right up on her toes, then twirled round and round until she stopped dead, as if the batteries had gone. Completely dead and stiff.
Everyone was clapping again.
‘She’s just sixteen,’ shouted Jocelyne’s mother, over the clapping. ‘Not bad, is she? The one playing Swanilda. Armande, her name is. Father a top criminal barrister.’
‘She’s really good,’ I said, feeling my chest go funny. Nathalie’s age. The age my dead sister would have been, now. The age of the beautiful dancer who was folded up in my inside pocket, when she’d played Swanilda. I wanted to take her out and unfold her and look at her.
‘Not really good. Not good enough for the Opéra’s dance school, anyway. She didn’t pass the entrance exam. Failed on her pirouette dedans, apparently. Weak feet. All that last part should have been on points, not three-quarters.’
The clapping had stopped suddenly and I was sure her last few words could have been heard on stage. Dr Coppélius was going over to Franz, now. He took some more spirit from him and went back to Coppélia, who was still standing all frozen like a robot, and threw it onto her bosoms. Her white top was so thin you could see her bosoms almost as if she was nude above the tutu. They weren’t big, though. In fact, they weren’t much bigger than a man’s.
She started to melt – that’s what it looked like, anyway. The music changed as she was melting and seemed to flow right into me. She was turning from being a doll into a human being. She was moving smoothly now and the music was moving with her and flowing right into me. She had a mirror in her hands. She was very pretty. She twirled round on one leg looking into the mirror and then tipped slowly forward. Her leg was going up at the back, just like Carole’s had done in the ward. It went up and up, even higher than Carole’s, right up until she was doing the splits, until her foot was the same height as her head. She was wobbling a bit as she looked down into the mirror, which flashed the green and blue lights into our eyes. Jocelyne’s mother started shaking her head, fing
ers resting on her lips. The music flowed through me until there was a whisper in my ear.
‘She can’t do her arabesque penchée.’ The appley perfume covered my face. ‘Look at that wobble.’
I felt proud that she was talking to me like this, even though I didn’t know anything about ballet. I nodded and smiled, as if I was agreeing. Swanilda’s leg went back down again. I reached into my inside pocket and took out the page I’d cut from the library book, unfolding it carefully without making a rustle. The dancer’s eyes in the photograph were still staring at me, even in the bad light. I showed the page to Jocelyne’s mother, who tipped her head slightly to one side. I wasn’t sure why I was doing this. Swanilda was pretending to go out of control on the stage.
‘Who’s that?’ whispered Jocelyne’s mother.
‘The first Swanilda,’ I whispered back.
She put her ear closer to my face.
‘The first Swanilda,’ I repeated. One of her hairs caught in my mouth.
‘Giuseppina Bozzacchi?’
I nodded. How could I have forgotten the name? She knows it all, I thought. I took the hair out of my mouth with my fingers. My mother had noticed us, she was leaning forward now. I made sure the page was turned enough away for her not to see.
‘She died just after,’ I whispered, the ear coming close again. ‘Of a bad disease. Because of the Siege of Paris. 1780. I mean, 1870.’
‘You are an expert, Gilles,’ Jocelyne’s mother whispered back, into my own ear.
Somebody behind told us to shush, again, as a thumping came from the stage. The thumps were Swanilda, being chased by Dr Coppélius as she rushed around the stage pretending to be Coppélia out of control. Now she was switching on the robots. I folded the page and put it back in my pocket. I’d never felt prouder in my life, and had to breathe in slowly and deeply.
Franz was waking up because of the robots going mad. They collapsed one by one, arms dangling down. I wished I was up there, acting Franz. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be up there, all lit up in front of everyone. It seemed better than being on television or in a film.
The lights turned more normal and Swanilda wheeled on the real doll, slumped in the wheelchair completely nude, as if she’d stolen it from a shop window. Someone, probably one of the boys at the back, whistled and there were a few laughs. Franz was astonished when Swanilda showed him the nude dummy. He’d been in love with a robot, disguised as a beautiful girl. Although they never spoke, I could sort of hear her saying it as she waved her arms about. I found my face making the same expression as Franz’s. I put it back to normal and checked out of the corner of my eye, but Jocelyne’s mother hadn’t noticed. The dummy’s pink skin was a bit shiny, not like real skin at all – but it still felt funny, seeing Coppélia without any clothes on.
Jocelyne only came back for the extra bit at the end, after Swanilda and Franz had run off through the balcony window and Dr Coppélius was left hugging Coppélia and crying, as if he’d lost a wife or a daughter. It looked weird, seeing him hug her in the nude. In fact, her hand looked very realistic on his lap. Jocelyne’s mother glanced at me and made a face. The lights switched off and everyone clapped and then the lights came on again, showing a boy with a long beard and long cloak. He was holding a placard announcing the Masque of the Bell. The bell was a big cut-out one at the back, painted bright pink, and the walls were covered in long white curtains.
All the dancers came on and watched as Franz and Swanilda were married by the Duke, who looked like General R. Despierre or Chéronnet in the painting. Dr Coppélius came on with Coppélia in the wheelchair, but she was dressed again. He was angry, pointing to his broken doll, who was definitely the shop dummy this time. The Duke gave him some giant service station tickets with a picture of Napoleon on and he was happy: everyone laughed at this, especially Jocelyne’s mother. Some of the dancers watched while the others moved in and out of each other, making different shapes. The boy kept coming on with the placard saying which dance it was – the Dance of the Hours, the Call to Work and so on. It went on for ages and got boring, though Jocelyne’s mother said halfway through that they had simplified it a lot. I nodded, as if I knew already.
Jocelyne looked bad-tempered again and didn’t seem to know what to do some of the time, though it was hard to keep sight of her in all the moving around. I noticed her bosoms under her shiny top: they were quite big. Jocelyne’s mother covered her face with her hands at several points, as if she couldn’t bear to watch. I wasn’t sure why, but it didn’t upset me at all, seeing Jocelyne do badly. Everything had gone much better than I’d expected. I’d expected to look stupid; instead I’d been called an expert. I felt I was an expert, in fact.
The dancers all went off and everyone clapped. There was only Dr Coppélius left, the music continuing. I felt relieved – but then he started walking across, pushing the wheelchair with the shop-dummy Coppélia in it. He looked miserable, stopping for a moment to stare out at us all. Suddenly, the doll twitched a bit and came alive. It slowly got out of the wheelchair and stood up. It danced around the wheelchair with him and then they skipped off together hand in hand, leaving the wheelchair on the stage. I’d not seen the dummy exchanged for someone real, and it had shocked me again.
The wheelchair was on its own in a circle of light. The circle grew smaller and smaller until it went out completely and there was darkness. It was like the beginning, and the circle of light stayed in front of my eyes again as a yellow blob. Everyone started clapping and the curtains closed. They opened again to show all the dancers lined up in bright light. Jocelyne didn’t smile like most of the others; instead, she looked as if she needed to go to the toilet. She was screwing up her eyes against the light, as if it was too sunny, and when she looked in our direction she didn’t react. She was looking right at me, screwing her eyes up, and she didn’t react. Maybe the lights were blinding her and she couldn’t see anything at all. A thin man with a very narrow waist, dressed completely in black so that his hands and face looked incredibly white, came on and bowed and then clapped the dancers.
‘Terry,’ hissed Jocelyne’s mother. ‘The brilliant homo American.’
‘He looks as if he needs feeding,’ said my mother.
‘Oh well,’ Jocelyne’s mother sighed, after the clapping had died away into someone silly at the back, clapping on their own, ‘at least she didn’t fall off the stage.’
‘It really was very clever,’ said my mother.
‘Perhaps she didn’t have enough rosin on. On her slippers,’ I suggested.
‘Who?’
‘Jossi. That’s why she slipped.’
Jocelyne’s mother pulled a face and said, ‘Quite possibly, Gilles. I’ll ask her. She’s so frightfully vague about practical things. You are an expert.’
We left the huge room, the blob in front of my eyes now a weird red. I led the way. I wasn’t quite sure how I had ended up feeling so clever and confident, but I was enjoying it. I was even thinking that, if I’d attended a dance academy like this, I would have danced better than anyone else on stage. It didn’t look that difficult. I wasn’t even nervous about meeting Jocelyne any more. We waited in the corridor. Pupils were coming out of the far doors, laughing and shouting, some still with make-up on or bits of their costumes, running out one by one or in little groups, very excited and swinging sports bags and smelling sweaty and sweet. Jocelyne’s mother chatted with her friends. Then they went off. One of them said, ‘See you after the Revolution,’ and everyone laughed.
Jocelyne was taking ages to appear. It was strange seeing people move normally: I’d got used to the dancing, as if to dance was the only way of moving around. My mother went off to the toilet. I was a bit nervous, now, about Jocelyne appearing. It was because she was taking so long. I was very thirsty and had a drink out of the tap in the corner sink.
‘O Charmion, I’m bored,’ said Jocelyne’s mother, and gave a little giggle. ‘I do hope Raymond hasn’t collapsed. Priscillia wouldn’
t have the faintest idea what to do. She’s from – oh, what’s it called? Tiny country, terribly Catholic. Raymond fancies himself as a martyr to the cause, of course. Lost in battle.’
‘There was a battle at Bagneux, in 1870,’ I said.
‘Sorry?’
‘At Bagneux, where I live, there was this battle. In 1870.’ I clasped my hands behind my back like our teachers would. ‘The same year as Coppélia,’ I added, with a flash of inspiration. I’d not really made the connection until that moment. Everything was flowing along smoothly, like the music had at my favourite moments in the show. ‘Exactly the same year as Coppélia,’ I repeated.
‘She takes so long. She always does,’ said Jocelyne’s mother, turning to my mother who had come back from the toilet just at that moment.
‘So the French forces advanced on the village right past our house,’ I went on, a bit louder. ‘On Bagneux. It’s not the same. The house, I mean. It was knocked down – by Gigi, I think. The Germans were in the village and they threw all the furniture into the road, you see, to block our troops. Beds and chairs and things. People’s furniture, out of the windows.’
‘I see.’
‘But we advanced under cover of the park wall and took the village and shot a lot of the Germans who didn’t surrender. Right in the rooms. Or the barns. Dead.’
Jocelyne’s mother was nodding, and she had a smile on her face, but I could tell that she wasn’t listening.
‘We took the rest prisoner. 1870. October.’
‘Here she is!’
Jocelyne was coming out of the end door, in jeans and a yellow sweater. She looked furious.
‘Well done, darling!’ cried Jocelyne’s mother.
‘Oh, shut up. It was stupid.’
‘It wasn’t, darling—’