Reserved for the Cat

The Moulin Rouge dancers—and she was far closer in position to them right now than to La Augustine—never thought of the future if they could help it; when they got presents of money, they spent it, and they would not know what to do with a building of flats except to allow all their friends to move in and stay for nothing. They were happy with the flashy jewels and champagne suppers of the bold, rich men who drove big, fast motorcars. This was the way that such men liked things. And those men were not old. Nor were they often very kind. In fact, from what little of those sorts of men Ninette had seen, she judged them to be very demanding, very arrogant, and often difficult to deal with. They wanted and what they wanted, they generally got. They also had very little regard for wants or needs not their own; they expected to be the ones being pleased, and not the ones giving pleasure. When they gave a gift, it was with the expectation that it would be displayed so that everyone would know what a fine gift they could give. They seldom took their kept women to the theater, to the opera, to places where the “respectable” might go. The lives of their women were very irregular indeed.

She considered these things as she carefully and expertly applied her stage makeup, and as Ailse helped her into her costume. All things considered, she decided, if these were that sort of young man, she would not give any of them particular encouragement. She would accept their flowers and other gifts, but give them nothing other than the opportunity to display to each other how important they were, and to vie for her undivided attention.

And it was always possible that these were merely romantic young men for whom sending several bouquets of flowers to a dancer was the acme of extravagance. And since she had far more in common with Manon than with Mimi, she did not propose to live on love in a garret. So she would enjoy their attention and their flattery, but give them nothing to hope for beyond that she would allow them to give her attention and flattery.

Besides, the audience gave her that . . .

And with that in mind, she hurried off to the wings to give them every reason to grant it to her.

The house was full, the holiday-makers’ season in full bloom, and it was an audience that expected to be pleased, was prepared to be pleased, and was happy to show that it was pleased. Her dances with the props, the huge skirt, and the colored lights brought oohs and ahs from the audience. Then she changed from the skirt costume to the simple long Grecian-style dress she wore for the first of Jonathon’s turns, the trick with Jonathon where she chased his dancing handkerchief. It was never quite the same twice in a row; she played the part of a young girl that Jonathon was trying to make smile. He would pull the handkerchief out of the air, make a little puppet of it and make the puppet dance. She would chase it, and it would elude her, popping in and out of a bottle to keep her from capturing it. Then she would decide to trick it, go off to the other side of the stage, and dance wonderfully intricate ballet passages cribbed from the solos from Les Sylphides, the Chopin ballet that had no plot, as opposed to the La Sylphide, which had been her triumph and downfall. The handkerchief would become curious, come closer and closer, and finally end up dancing with her. That brought delighted laughter.

Then she ran offstage and quickly changed into her “captive slave” costume, for the trick where she appeared to be burned alive; as ever, even through her own screams, she heard the gasps of horror. It was a particularly good evening. It almost seemed to her that she could feel the audience’s pleasure, as well as hear it. She had actually shivered in the cabinet at their gasps of horror, feeling some of that horror herself.

And when she returned to a dressing room full of more flowers, she found it also full of both passionate and impoverished young men and brash and demanding wealthier middle-aged men. And as she had expected, the older men were all the nouveau riche, motorcar-driving, ragtime-loving sort. Not the sort from which one would get proper support.

For one moment, she almost fled, despite her earlier thoughts. She was not the great dancer she pretended to be. She was only a little creature from Paris Opera Ballet, not an etoile, a bare step up from coryphée.

But then she steeled herself, cast her mind back to La Augustine, and sailed into the dressing room with a smile and a tinkling laugh. This, too was a performance, and she would give it her best.

Nigel came by, looked surprised and then pleased by all the attention she was getting, then went on his way. Well, he was surely counting his receipts with great pleasure tonight. Arthur waved, and Wolf flapped his wings at her from the door, but they were clearly on their way somewhere else—home, perhaps.