Reserved for the Cat (2 page)

And he had never come back again.

And that was all Ninette knew of her Papa. There had, most certainly, been no trace of him whatsoever. No bodies had turned up, no one even remembered seeing him in their street. He was just—gone. And there was Maman, with no money and a tiny baby and no idea how to keep them from starving except to take in washing and take off her clothes for the artists in their quarter. So she did both. And Ninette grew up in an atmosphere where the smell of harsh soap and paint drying meant comfort. Meager comfort, but nevertheless, comfort, for soap and paint meant cabbage, beans, bread, and cheese, and perhaps even sausages sometimes.

The artists were kinder than the people who sent them laundry to clean. The artists bounced her on their knees when she was quiet to make her laugh, sang out-of-tune songs with questionable lyrics to soothe her to sleep, and sometimes had musician friends who played music that made her dance. The artists were more generous too, which was strange considering that the people who sent them laundry had far more money than the artists did.

Learning to dance was hard work. Dancing was even harder. Ninette had liked making up her own dances and not having to do them teetering on her burning toes, with her calves and arches aching. Ballet hurt. She ended every performance—and she had been performing since she was twelve—with cramped and blistered feet, with aching ankles and knees. She ended every rehearsal wishing she could have been anywhere else. She was not one of those few for whom the stage was a fairy-tale place where nothing bad could ever touch them. The stage for her was one thing: a show window, where she would somehow manage to catch the eye of someone with a great deal of money while, at the same time, keeping the
etoiles
and the
premier danseurs
from noticing that she had done so.

As she wedged her feet carefully into her pink satin shoes and bound the pink ribbons just so around her ankles, the scent of the ballet filled her nostrils—rosin and sweat, chalk-dust and flowers, perfume and gaslights, the heavy makeup they all wore, the pomade on their hair to hold it in place. All the sylph-girls wore their hair in stiff little buns with wreaths of white artificial flowers around them; the Scottish girls all had the same stiff little buns but wore Scottish bonnets over them, so they didn’t need as much pomade.

The orchestra was tuning up on the other side of the red velvet curtain, and the house was filling. She could hear the murmur of voices out there, a kind of dull rumble in which individual voices were submerged into an oddly slumberous whole.

Ninette, of course, was a Sylph. This was a very long ballet, and it often seemed to Ninette that it got longer every year, with more and more solos, duets, trios,
pas de quatres
and Variations added to satisfy—

Who?

Presumably the rich old men in fur coats in the boxes, who delighted in seeing their kept darlings flitting across the stage. Each of them watched with proprietary pride, knowing—or at least thinking—that their pretty little thing was being ogled by all, but like the white doe in the legend was not to be touched by any save the one whose collar they wore so prettily.

Well, Ninette was going to
be
one of those kept darlings, and when she was, she was going to
stop
dancing. Or at least, she was going to dance only what and as she wanted to. Perhaps . . . she thought longingly . . . perhaps in the style of
La Belle Isadora,
Isadora Duncan, with her bare feet and little Greek tunics, bare arms and freedom . . . perhaps like Loie Fuller, who had only to swirl enormous draperies around in colored lights.

But that day was not yet, and this day was another skirmish in the war to win what her mother never had.

She missed her mother; every night going home to the now-empty apartment, every Sunday visiting the unmarked pauper’s grave, she missed Maman dreadfully. That might seem strange to someone who only saw the Maria Dupond who lectured and scolded her daughter, always pushing, pushing her. But Ninette knew the desperation that had been behind the scolding, and felt that same desperation watching the pleasant spring and languid summer march towards fall, towards winter, when the little garret would have little or no heat and the wind would whistle through the cracks till the water would freeze solid in the pitcher and washbasin. It had been hard enough to sustain life with both Marie’s income and hers. With the meager salary of a soloist . . .

Ninette rose to her feet and began her warming up exercises. She never put these off. She had seen far too many girls hurt because they scanted their warm-ups—and an injured dancer is not a dancer at all, and there were plenty more waiting to take her place if she faltered and fell.

Stretches first; toe-touches,
plies
in all five positions, back and leg stretches along the backstage
barre
followed by similar exercises
en pointe,
and limbering exercises for the arches—

This was only a matinee, and the audience would mostly be children and their governesses, old people who could not afford the evening prices—but some of those rich old men still liked to fill the box stalls even at a matinee. For some, the reason was because the matinee was where the fresh, young talent was trotted out and seasoned, like young horses running local races before attempting the
Grand Prix.
For others, it was because their constitutions no longer permitted the late hours of a long production. And who knew? There might even be some ballet lovers among them, as opposed to lovers of little ballerinas.

Since it was only a matinee, Ninette had not even thought much about the fact that the Sylphide herself, Mademoiselle Jeanmarie Augustine, was nowhere to be seen. The
etoile
was possessed by one of those rich old men, performed her warm-ups in the privacy of her own little ballet studio in her luxurious flat, and was rushed to the theater in her paramour’s own motorcar. But an uncharacteristic stir backstage caught her attention, as did the sound of raised voices signaling something was wrong, and she looked up from her stretching among all the other little sylphs to see the ballet master, the wardrobe mistress, and the company manager hurrying towards her own little knot of girls carrying, respectively, a wreath of artificial orange blossoms of the sort that winter brides wore, the slightly larger and more elaborate wings of
La Sylphide
herself, and a sheaf of papers. . . .

And they were looking straight at her.

A thrill of excitement together with a chill of anxiety sent blood rushing to her cheeks and gooseflesh to crawl on her arms. Something must have happened to La Augustine. But surely they weren’t—

They were.

The other girls scampered awkwardly out of the way as the three approached, the portly, be-suited manager, with his little fringe of hair combed hopelessly over his bald pate, looking particularly red-faced and out-of-sorts. When they reached hearing distance, they all started talking at once.

“Of all the wretched inconveniences—”

“Ma belle, we haven’t time to change—”

“Petite, I know you can—”

“Enough!”
roared the company manager, getting complete silence. “Look here, girl—” he scanned the papers in his hand. “Ninette. La Augustine managed to trip on the curb and sprained her ankle. Her understudy didn’t come in.” The look on his face told what he thought was the reason—a man, too much wine, and a big head after. “The second understudy is already in the harness—”

The harness. Of course, the harness that attached to the ropes that would make the Sylphide fly through the air to tease James. There were really two Sylphides, a dancing one and a flying one. The harness was built into a costume that was impossible to actually dance in. The dancing Sylphide would flit offstage and the flying one would be pulled by three strong men out of the wings and through the air, only to have the dancing one take her place again to flit with James in pursuit. It was one of the tricks that made this ballet so popular.

“That leaves you. Pierre says you can dance it—”

The ancient ballet master, gray-haired, tall, and leonine, smiled encouragingly. She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly elated and terrified all at once. “Mais oui, I have studied the part, rehearsed it, but—”

“I have seen you in rehearsal after rehearsal, cherie, and you will be admirable.” The ballet master patted her shoulder. “Do not think. Just dance.”

“It’s only a matinee,” the company manager growled. “The balletomanes are always after us to put new young dancers on the stage—”

“Ah, but you know why we have the
etoiles
dance even the matinees,” the ballet-master interjected. “The balletomanes are few, and the public many, and the Parisian audience is loyal to a fault. They wish to see their
etoiles,
and barring accident—”

“Yes, yes, yes, I know,” the manager growled. “Well, there
was
an accident. Get those wings on her!” he barked at the inoffensive wardrobe mistress. Unflappable as ever, the competent old woman in her eternal, rusty-black dress was already taking the smaller wings of a soloist off the small of Ninette’s back. “Thank all the Saints the costumes are so alike; we’d never have time for you to change.” The ballet master plucked the smaller, scanter wreath from Ninette’s head and pinned the Sylphide’s wreath in its place.

The stage manager, evidently already apprised of the situation, was mustering the chorus. Anton Deauville, the rather aging
etoile
in the part of James, was arranging himself in the armchair onstage. The orchestra had finished tuning and was falling silent. So was the babble of sound from the other side of the curtain. The company manager gave Ninette a despairing look and stalked off to stage center front, to part the curtains and walk through.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” She heard his voice, muffled first by the heavy velvet, then the fire curtains. “Due to an accident, the part of La Sylphide will be danced this afternoon by Mademoiselle Ninette Dupond. Thank you.”

She went cold. She had been in the theater so many times when it was someone else’s name announced in place of the
etoile.
There had been restlessness, murmurs of discontent—after all one had paid to see the
etoile,
and one should get what one had paid for! Sometimes there were whistles and catcalls, more often cross murmurs as the members of the audience searched in their playbills for the unfamiliar name. Once in a great while, people walked out.

Were they walking out right now?

“Places!” called the stage-manager, as the wardrobe mistress got the wings securely in place.

And Ninette had a moment of panic.
Do I enter stage left, or stage right?

She froze. But the ballet master had been anticipating this reaction. He steered her to her mark.

And then it was too late to panic. The curtain was rising. She heard her cue, lurched up onto pointe, and blindly made her entrance into the glare of the stage lights.

The performance was a blur, punctuated by moments of brilliant clarity. Anton, his face made into an almost immovable mask with stage makeup, looking encouragement at her with his expressive eyes. A moment of fleeting ecstasy as a lift went so flawlessly it felt as if she were in the harness and flying. Another of joy as she finished a piece of excruciating footwork so beautifully that the audience broke into spontaneous applause. Feeling sweat run down her back, having to keep it all look magical, effortless.

And through it all, Maman’s orders.
Pick one side or the other, left or right, it doesn’t matter, so long as you keep looking to that same side during the whole performance. Look to the boxes. In a moment of rest, smile there, pretend you can see past the footlights. I know you can’t and you know you can’t, but those rich old men up there don’t know that, and every one of them will be certain you are smiling at him.

Finally, James cast the poisoned scarf around her, and her wings fell off, and she “died.” The other sylphs came and took her up, and carried her offstage, and onstage, the flying sylphs rose into the “sky” with a life-sized sylph doll in their arms. Her part was, at last, done. She was “done” before that, though; this was the one section where, as in Giselle’s mad scene, there was a lot of room for interpretation. La Augustine made a long process of the dying, often forcing the conductor to signal the orchestra to repeat bars of music as she staggered about the stage. Ninette was too drained. The moment that her wings came off, she came down off-pointe, stared at James blankly, made a feeble motion of entreaty, and dropped like a shot bird. It was her fellow sylphs that followed the music then, gathering around her, carrying her off.

Exhaustion struck her like a blow, and once they put her down offstage, she just sat there, breathing hard. Onstage, James wept, watched as the wedding procession of his betrothed Effie and her former suitor Gurn went by, railed at the witch Madge, tried to kill her, and was killed in his turn. Madge did a little pantomime of triumph and the curtain came down. Offstage, Ninette finally got to her feet.

Applause. There was applause at least. So she had not driven anyone out. There were no hoots or whistles. She must have done well enough.

First the Scots
coryphées
and
quadrilles
took their curtain calls, then the sylphs. Then the
sujets.
Then—first Madge, then Effie’s mother, then Effie and Gurn, and then—

Then Anton was taking her hand and drawing her onto the stage, and the applause rose, and there were shouts of approval; she made the bow she had practiced ever since she was a tiny tot, deep and appreciative, and smiled at the box seats on both sides of the stage.

And there were flowers, bouquets brought on stage by the little pages. She remembered to take a rose from hers and give it prettily to Anton. Then the continuing applause reminded her to make another bow; and wave graciously to the rest of the company and bow to them, then they all came forward and bowed, and the curtain came down, then rose again—