Mannequin Girl

by Ellen Litman

  THE WEEK of the opening, Sveta Vlasenko comes down with pneumonia. On Sunday night she calls Misha and Anechka at home and pleads with them to wait for her, vows she’ll be at the opening anyway, despite her raging fever and the risk of complications. Kat’s parents put a quick stop to this foolishness. There can’t be any talk of that, they say. Sveta must remain in bed; pneumonia is not a thing to toy with. They sound decisive and confident, but afterward they’re at a loss.

  “What do we do?” says Misha when Anechka gets off the phone.

  The situation leaves them with few choices. They can wait until after the holidays and miss the district contest, or they can try to replace Sveta. But how do you replace your leading actress with only a week of rehearsal left? Never mind that she wasn’t the right actress and that most of her scenes rang hopelessly false. In the past, she was good at playing princesses. She could do goodness, wide-eyed innocence, even a bit of comedy sometimes. But the part of Pushkin’s wife has been eluding her. First she played it too sweetly, then too peevishly, making Natalie into a shrew. She couldn’t seem to capture her complexity, couldn’t grasp that she was bad and good, that a person could be like that, at once big-hearted and self-centered.

  Kat always knew she could be Natalie. For weeks now she’s had the whole play memorized. Not on purpose, but unconsciously, just as in previous years. It happened seamlessly, without her really noticing. She can play any part, stand in for anyone. She’d play Natalie right, the way she and Mironov discussed it, not as flighty and selfish but misunderstood, trapped. She’d turn the whole play upside down, if only Misha would allow it.

  She corners him that Sunday night, once Anechka has gone to bed, and, as might be expected, he’s startled.

  “It’s a big part,” he says. “The biggest one. Without it, there is no play.”

  “Test me,” she says, and right there on the spot she recites for him a monologue that has always confounded Sveta.

  “I don’t doubt your memory, Button. But darling, you’re only fourteen. This role requires life experience.”

  “Does one have to be a murderer to play Lady Macbeth?”

  “We can’t be rash, Button. Most likely we’ll have to reschedule for after the holidays. It’s not fair to Sveta to go on without her. She’s put a lot of work into this play. We have a rehearsal tomorrow, so why don’t we shelve it until then?”

  “Should I practice some scenes?” Kat asks, and Misha tells her, “Might as well.”

  The next evening, Kat does what she never thought she would. After nap, she takes her brace into a bathroom stall and loosens two screws at the side. It’s the most common break and also the easiest to fake, and it will only take a minute to fix when she goes to the repair shop next morning. For now, though, the brace is broken, and a break is a break.

  At rehearsal, she sits in the back and hopes no one will notice her, not until she is on stage performing, her voice, unhindered now, resounding through the assembly hall. She is nervous. In her head she’s going through Sveta’s lines. Not that anyone’s paying attention to her. You can tell that the drama kids have heard of Sveta’s illness, and, judging by their funereal expressions, they don’t think their play has a chance. Little do they know that Kat’s about to astound them. Once she’s given the spotlight, they’ll never look at her the same again. She’ll be something miraculous. They’ll all want to speak to her, to have her as their confidante and friend, and she, in turn, will be straightforward, unafraid. She won’t hesitate to get close to Nikita. He’s sitting at the end of the first row now, in a thick knitted sweater that adds to his bearish bulk. She could sneak up behind him, put her hands over his eyes—Guess who?—and he would know; he’d be in love with her.

  Then Misha and Anechka enter—enter briskly, energetically, as if nothing is amiss. It makes no sense, but they appear almost happy. They sit side by side on the edge of the stage, their feet dangling. “Why the long faces?” Misha says. “Cheer up, ladies and gentlemen.” Yes, he admits, it’s sad that Sveta’s fallen ill, but in their line of work it happens. And then he reveals the new plan: one show at school, one at the district contest, and then two more, with Sveta, when they come back after the break.

  This means, Kat thinks, he must have listened; he’s actually giving her a chance. She must have impressed him with her recitation last evening.

  “But who will play Natalie?” asks Ritka.

  “Ah,” Misha says, “that’s our big surprise,” and now he is positively beaming. He bumps Anechka’s shoulder with his shoulder, and she smiles a bit shyly and waves to the group. Misha fakes a small, officious cough. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our veteran actress, our incomparable Anna Alexandrovna.”

  IT’S STILL a shock, not just to Kat, but to everyone there. There have been stories, of course, stories of Anechka’s acting and her talent, but no one has seen her perform. So now they watch her with some hesitation. Will she stumble, or take a wrong turn? And how will the rest of them hide their embarrassment?

  Kat in particular feels that this casting choice is wrong. Not because she herself has been ignored, but because Anechka is pregnant. She should be sitting quietly and resting, nurturing the creature inside. But perhaps she’s been chosen precisely because she is pregnant, because she and Misha both know that it will work this time, and the play is their way of celebrating. They are starting over together. They’re passionate, hopeful, young.

  Then Anechka begins a scene, and it turns out that she’s good, really excellent. Her mastery on stage is unmistakable. There are no extraneous gestures, none of the simpering or artificiality that Misha often cautions them against. She is confident, natural. Within minutes of watching her you forget she’s your mother or your teacher, you stop noticing her age.

  She is tender on stage, stirring in her fury and her helplessness, and that makes you root for her—root for Natalie—even though she’s not as virtuous as other characters. You see how she’s tied down by her marriage, how she grasps for something greater and casts about for somebody to trust. You can understand, finally, why Pushkin was so obsessed with her.

  ON THE day of the dress rehearsal, the borrowed theater costumes are carried from the drama room to the assembly hall. The boys are ordered to get out; the doors at both ends are barred with brooms. The long drapes make perfect changing rooms. Behind the drapes, the girls transform themselves—shed their braces, don their nineteenth-century finery. They emerge looking hesitant. There are no mirrors in the assembly hall, so they have to rely on one another. “Does it fit in the shoulders? Does it show too much of my back?” Ritka Mavrina pins their hems, takes care of their makeup.

  Kat leaves her brace behind the drape as well. Her dress is white with silvery embroidery. There are rows of small metal hooks on the sides and in the back, and these take a long time to fasten.

  The boys come in, their costumes simple in comparison: frock coats, tailcoats, overcoats. Under their eyes, the girls become a tender, chirping flock. They twirl, or spin each other in a waltz, or simply walk without purpose to and fro, as if attempting to relearn their bodies. They love these beautiful new bodies, encased in bombazine and marquisette. They relish the sway of their skirts and the percussion of their shoes on the assembly hall parquet.

  The set is arranged on the stage: a papier mâché pillar, a fainting couch, and in the background a cutout silhouette of St. Petersburg, steeped in violet twilight. Everything is in place. Everyone’s gathered. Only Misha and Anechka have yet to arrive.

  Kat catches sight of Nikita, who’s looking especially anxious and scanning the assembly hall—not for Kat in her beautiful gown, but for the comforting figure of Misha. No wonder, she thinks. Even in this dress she’s still herself, a minor character.

  “I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Misha had said to Kat on Monday, after rehearsal ended and Anechka left the stage.

  Kat had wanted to tell him that he could have at least let her try, but, after seeing Anechka, she knew
that she could never be as great.

  “I spoke to your mother and we both think you’re fabulous, but, Button, you wouldn’t be right for this part. There will be other parts, of course. You’re so young. And besides, we’re all counting on you to be our Society Lady. I mean, someone would have to replace you if you took Sveta’s part, and frankly, no one but you could do it right.”

  Kat nodded to show that she got it, and she really did, though not in the way he would have liked. She saw through his flattery, saw it as kindness, saw also what Misha left unsaid. She was not like her mother. She could play pleasant, episodic characters: modest maidens, obedient daughters, simple but loyal servant girls. But she would never be the magical, erratic star who has the power to mesmerize an audience.

  Thinking of it now, Kat slips into the stairwell. Outside sits Mironov, a dismal figure on the stone steps. At first she assumes he’s come to pester her about math, about the wretched polynomials. Doesn’t he know it’s dress rehearsal? Can’t he for once give her a break?

  “I just wanted to see it,” he says, rising.

  It looks like he didn’t expect her to come out, at least not in a lavish dress like that.

  “Why are you sitting here?” she asks him. “Why don’t you go inside?”

  “I didn’t think I was supposed to. You know, your mother—”

  “She’ll be on stage. She probably won’t see you.”

  He is still hesitating, so she gives him a push.

  “Go sit with my father and keep an eye on how he reacts.”

  “You want me to spy on him?”

  “Not spy. Just pay attention.”

  “You’re worried he won’t like your acting?”

  “I’m not worried,” she snaps. “I don’t care. You can go inside or you can stay here and freeze. It doesn’t matter to me either way.”

  She turns and walks away from him abruptly, but she can hear him scrambling after her. “Don’t get all psycho on me. Jeez! You goddamn crazy actors.”

  Except she’s not. She’ll never be an actress, no matter what Misha or anyone else says. If she can’t be the best, she’d rather not be anything. She won’t toil in obscurity as a noble but bleak understudy, an overgrown Snow Maiden performing at children’s matinees. How foolish she was to believe she could assume the role of Natalie. She actually thought her whole life was about to change. Now the mere idea of it makes her cringe. Misha was wise not to give her this chance; he knew she’d never crack it, never come close to Anechka’s perfection, never match her talent or her grace.

  She enters the assembly hall and stops. Anechka is standing in the middle of the stage, in waves of white organza. Her hair is done up in a fancy chignon and she’s wearing a circlet around her forehead, just as Natalie did in all her best-known portraits. The stage lights are on, and she’s up there all alone. Even now Kat knows that this is how she will remember her, unbearably beautiful, shielding her eyes against the sudden brightness. She doesn’t really belong in this assembly hall, on these crude wooden boards, in this play that suddenly seems trite and unimportant. She is a muse, she is the Madonna with child, beyond reproach, above them all.

  THE LIGHTS in the assembly hall come on, and after what seems an infinite pause but must be only a few seconds, Misha gets up and applauds. “Bravo! Bravissimo!” He punches himself in the chest. “You really got me, you devils!”

  When he gets up on stage, there’s another upswing of excitement, a whirl of embraces and pats. “Good job. Well done. Decidedly not bad.”

  The actors close in around Misha and, like a good director, he doles out criticism and praise. There were only a few mistakes: Medusa missed her cue, Nikita skipped a line. But mostly they rose to the challenge, and even improvised a bit at times. They’re pleased, extremely pleased, but also full of questions: Were they loud enough? Were their soliloquies distinct? Did Misha like that little moment at the end of the second act? Did he catch that one particular inflection?

  It’s good that Misha is, for once, the center of attention. He’s so often overshadowed by Anechka. At least now he’s getting his due. But it’s unlike Anechka to shy away from the revelry. It takes Kat a few moments to locate her. She is still elegant and swanlike in her ethereal costume, poised by the St. Petersburg cutout and gripping its wrought-iron frame. She seems disoriented, though, oblivious to the celebration.

  Kat calls to her, but she’s too far away. There are dozens of people between them. She jostles her way to the back of the stage. “Mom?” she says, though at school she’s not supposed to call her that, not even when they are alone together.

  Anechka tries to straighten up. Her fingers grapple with the frame, and in the light of the overhead lamps her eyes appear large and vacant. Then she is falling, falling, falling—pulling the set along with her, her head thudding horribly against the wooden floor, the set breaking in half over her body.

  12

  THEY LIVE AT THE HOSPITAL, SLEEP ON THE COT in the orderly’s room or sit in the hallway. They eat whatever they can find. There’s a grocery across the street; they buy bread, kefir, rolls of bologna, farmer’s cheese in small packets. They eat with their hands, drink from the bottle—there are no utensils or cups. The nurses are merciful; they don’t make a fuss. When there are rounds, they hide Kat and Misha in the linen closet.

  Here’s what the nurses told them when Anechka came out of surgery: she had been pregnant, but it hadn’t been right. The pregnancy—atypical, they say, ectopic—was never meant to thrive. It ruptured, and now, post-surgery, there are complications. It’s unlikely she’ll have another child. Maybe a one percent chance.

  “As long as she’s alive,” says Misha. Anechka has mostly been unconscious, and he’s worried. Worried about septicemia, pneumonia, high blood pressure, clots. He tells Kat he doesn’t trust hospitals.

  Kat herself tries not to think about the pregnancy, or whether she’s somehow willed this loss. Nor can she think of Anechka not making it. It’s better not to think at all, just go from one task to the next: sit on a banquette, stand, check Anechka’s temperature, ask Misha if he’s hungry, walk up and down the hallway, sit again.

  It takes them two days to track down the Roshdals. There’s a pay phone in the downstairs lobby, next to the coatroom. It is usually busy or out of order. The phone line in Kratovo is new. Listening to the long infrequent beeps, Kat tries to guess whether the line is down again or someone’s turned down the ringer.

  The Roshdals arrive on the third day. Valentina takes Kat in her arms and calls her and Misha “poor children.”

  “You couldn’t send a telegram?” says Alexander Roshdal. Not waiting for their lousy excuses, he walks away. Somehow, without asking, he knows exactly which room is his daughter’s.

  He comes out looking even grimmer. “We’re taking Kat home. A child has no business at a hospital.”

  “I’m not going,” Kat says. “We’ve agreed not to leave her.”

  “Don’t fight it, Button,” Misha whispers, even though they did agree. “Go home for a bit, and then I’ll come and get you.”

  KAT ALMOST falls asleep in the bathtub. She’s tired and she stinks of sweat and hospital. She feels as though she hasn’t been home in months. It’s a relief to take the brace off, to scratch at the chafed bits of skin. “I can help wash your hair,” Valentina offers, but Kat says she can manage. Afterward, in her slippers and bathrobe, she shambles to her room. She just needs to lie down for a moment.

  She wakes up by suppertime and at first she can’t tell whether it’s night or morning. Valentina has cleaned the whole apartment, changed the sheets and towels, made a supper of sausage and mashed potatoes. “Feeling better?” she asks.

  Kat jerks her head impatiently. “Why did no one wake me?”

  It turns out she slept through Misha’s phone call; he was the one who told them not to wake her. There’s no reason to worry; there has been no change.

  Alexander Roshdal, in the meantime, has made his own phone calls.
The son of an old army friend is a surgeon at the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology. If Anechka doesn’t get better by morning, they will arrange a transfer.

  “If only you’d reached us sooner,” says Roshdal. “Oh, Misha—you foolish, foolish boy.”

  They sit in the kitchen and pick, without appetite, at the fatty chunks of sausage. “It’s all I could find,” says Valentina. “There were cutlets in the fridge, but really I wouldn’t dare. They didn’t look too fresh.”

  “My mom’s in the hospital!” Kat says. “So maybe, you know, you shouldn’t complain.” She’s never been so short with Valentina, but something in her voice, a note of insincere plaintiveness, has felt to Kat like an attack.

  “You’re being disrespectful,” her grandfather warns. “Taking a leaf out of your mother’s book? Showing your loyalty? I thought I knew you better.”

  Kat produces a muffled apology and Valentina says she understands. To think what Kat’s been through! she says. A grown person would have gone to pieces from so much stress. But our girl is a real stalwart; she’s been such a help to her dad.

  Kat cringes at the praise. She doesn’t understand her own feelings. There’s never been bad blood between her and Valentina. They’ve always gotten along just fine, though perhaps in recent years they have drifted apart. It’s natural, Kat thinks. She’s growing up. She finds herself restless in Kratovo, bored with the card games, not really amused by Valentina’s jokes. She’s a simple person, Valentina, without much in the way of education, and now that Kat thinks of it, she’s never seen her read a book. How hard it must have been for Anechka when Roshdal brought her home, this perfectly average woman, meant to replace Anechka’s mother.