Reserved for the Cat

This was something she had sorely missed. It was one thing to dance a sequence from one of the many ballets that you had memorized, or a sequence that you tried to make up in your head to try and stretch your abilities and all the while watch yourself in the mirror for any flaws. It was quite another to dance a sequence as it was called out by the teacher, and to rely on the teacher to watch for flaws while you concentrated on the dancing.

He ran her through several such sequences, at varied tempi, his long face growing more and more thoughtful. Finally he waved her to the barre. “Mademoiselle,” he said heavily, “I am only an old man from Milano, with two bad knees and some ability to teach little English chorus girls to stagger about on their toes and not disgrace themselves. You are better than anyone I have ever taught. You are better than anyone I have ever danced with. You may be better than anyone I have ever seen. There is nothing I can teach you.”

Ninette listened to this with growing astonishment. True, in the past several weeks she had completely forgotten about captivating rich old men and had concentrated on her dancing as never before. But surely that had not made that much of an improvement! Surely he was mistaken. Or flattering her. Or—

Perhaps testing her. She raised her head. “Monsieur, whether or not any of that is true, a dancer never stops learning. You have learned at one school, I at another. Another technique is always worth learning. And you choreograph, which is something I have never done. True?”

“True,” he admitted.

She smiled. “Well then, pray help me with this first of my dances for this production, for I confess I can think of nothing to make it particularly interesting.” She fetched the hoop from the corner. “It is to combine ballet with the hoop-exercises of the Swiss girls—”

“Ah yes!” he exclaimed with recognition. “I saw them. Well, then, let us begin.”

By the end of the afternoon, he had turned a rather lackluster little piece into something amusing and interesting. It was true that he was no Petipa, but he had a good eye and a sound instinct. Being able to make clear improvements in her dance raised his spirits as well; by the end of the afternoon, he was issuing orders and tapping out the tempo with his instruction wand, and using it too, to reposition a foot or a knee—

He was one of those teachers who used a long wand, nearly as tall as he was, to point out problems with the feet and legs. She had only had one such teacher, at the Paris Opera, and he had been prone to using it to thwack little ballerinas across the back of the calf when he did not like what they were doing. Perhaps Ciccolini was naturally more gentle than that, or perhaps he simply deemed her too old for such correction—or maybe he feared that in a temper she would snatch his wand and break it over his head! At any rate, he did no such thing to her.

It was a relief to think about something besides magic, to concentrate entirely on her dance. It was very odd to think that a few weeks ago, she would have been perfectly happy to find herself not dancing! This was real, solid, something she had known all her life, something she understood. Magic, she did not understand. How could a cat talk? How could there be little creatures like the Brownie living right under everyone’s noses?

Dancing was better. But—there was something lacking even with her dancing.

But she needed something more. She needed—

“Mademoiselle,” the instructor began, breaking her out of her reverie. “This looks very fine in this room. But to judge whether or not it will serve on the stage, you must take it on the stage. And to judge whether or not it pleases an audience, you must take it before an audience.”

She thought about that for a moment, and realized what it was that she had been feeling the lack of.

An audience. She had not, until that moment, realized just how much she had missed that aspect of dancing. The audience! Not just potential suitors, but all of them, from the little girls at their first ballet to the old balletomanes. She wanted to hear applause, feel their presence, drink in their attention.

It was very strange . . . when she had danced the Sylphide, she had not even considered the audience, and yet now, that applause had been like a drug. And she wanted more of it.

“I quite agree with you, Monsieur,” she said with a nod. “I will speak with the director. There is no reason why I should not start performing. Same time tomorrow, then?”

He nodded. “I fear my mornings will be filled with teaching people who have perfect figures and an imperfect sense of where to put their feet or how to execute a few steps. In other words, I will be instructing the chorus.”

“Very good, Monsieur,” she replied—the old man bowed to her, and took his leave. The pianist began packing her music away, and Ninette retired to the little changing room just off the rehearsal room. She changed into her street clothing, and went straight to Nigel’s office.