Chapter 7 #2
“The Bolshoi is not the only place you can dance. There are some wonderful ballet companies all around the world. In France, and the United States, and here, maybe England. You have a magnificent career ahead of you. This war is not going to stop you. It can’t take away what you know, and your talent.
Nothing can stop you.” Tatyanna was impeccably trained and a very talented, exquisite dancer.
Nikolai was grateful that she hadn’t been killed in the war, that her talent hadn’t been lost to the world.
“I have to think about it. Our company is complete right now, but I want to think about how to use you until a spot becomes vacant. As you know, people move around, they get better offers and opportunities. And no, you may not clean the theater. You’re one of the finest dancers I’ve ever seen anywhere, including the Bolshoi.
Come to class at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, and I’ll give it a lot of thought tonight.
I don’t want to waste you. You don’t belong in the corps de ballet.
” Yana had been thrilled to be in the corps de ballet in Kyiv, but Tatyanna was an exceptional dancer, not just an ordinary one.
“And don’t forget what I told you, you may take unlimited classes here for free.
” Nikolai liked the idea of Tatyanna teaching too, but not for many years.
“You could be very famous one day, you know.” He walked her back to the dressing room, and left her there.
She showered quickly and dressed in her street clothes again.
She had just enough time to get home and be there when Daryna and Pavlo came home from school.
She tried to be there every day to greet them after school and give them cookies and milk.
The woman at the desk waved at her as she left the building. Nikolai had stopped to talk to her on the way to his office.
“How was she?” she asked him. She had begun to like Tatyanna, and wished her well.
“She dances like an angel, she’s like a diamond glittering in the sun.” The woman wondered how he would make room for Tatyanna. They had a very full house of dancers at the moment, and no one was leaving.
When Tatyanna left the theater and ballet school, she felt like she was floating.
After dancing, she felt as though her soul had come back into her body.
When she put her toe shoes on, she felt like herself again, and she had felt Vlad near her the whole time.
He was a benevolent spirit, watching over her now.
—
She had something interesting to say at the dinner table that night.
She waited until Bogdan and Tomas had talked sports with their father.
Nina and Yulya were talking about the children, what they needed for school and having to go to the doctor for new vaccines.
Daryna had brought her favorite doll to dinner and showed Tatyanna the dress and shoes she had put on her, and Pavlo had taught Max a trick, how to walk on his hind legs and sing, which was an earsplitting howling.
And when they had all talked about their day, Tatyanna spoke quietly.
“I danced today,” she said simply.
“As in you and Fred Astaire, or Beyoncé and Jay-Z,” Nina teased her, “or like a young Dame Margot Fonteyn?”
“More like that.” Tatyanna smiled blissfully, and they could all see what it had meant to her. She was positively glowing when she said it.
“Where?” Yulya asked her. “Here at the house?”
“I filled out an application at the Polish National Ballet two weeks ago, and they never called me, so I went by today to try again. I had an informal audition with the director,” she said modestly.
“We had the same teacher. My teacher in Kyiv taught him at the Bolshoi. I think he liked my dancing. When he heard that I’m a refugee, he said I can come to class for free every day.
It’s very expensive to take those classes so that was nice of him. He was very kind to me.”
There had been so many things to worry about when they met that Yulya had never paid serious attention to Tatyanna’s career with the ballet, and suddenly she realized that she must have talent if the director himself had auditioned her and she had been trained by experts. “What did you dance to?”
“Swan Lake, it was our teacher’s favorite, so I did it as a tribute to her.
” And Vlad, but she didn’t say it. It made her too sad.
“He’s going to think about what to do with me.
They don’t have any openings in the company.
” She wanted to make some money, as hers was about to run out, and she didn’t want to ask Yulya to lend her any.
“I told him I would even clean the theater.” There was something so touching and innocent about her, so sincere, it made Yulya want to put her arms around her.
She had been so self-effacing and helpful ever since they’d met.
“Did you wear your toe shoes?” Daryna asked her, and Tatyanna smiled.
“I did.”
“And a tutu?” Her eyes grew wide, impressed.
“No, I didn’t bring one with me. I just wore my black leotard and toe shoes.”
The others were excited for her, and wished her luck with the audition.
“I’m going to class tomorrow. It’ll be fun to see what the classes are like here.
I’ve missed it. I used to go every day, and to rehearsals.
” It reminded them all of the discipline she had, the endurance and the strength.
She was such a gentle, unassuming person that it was easy to forget what kind of determination it took to be a ballerina.
“If you have a recital, can we come?” Daryna asked her, and Tatyanna hugged her.
“Of course. And maybe they’ll lend me a tutu.”
They lingered over dinner, and Yulya smiled for the first time since Symon had disappeared. His absence still weighed heavy on her heart, and she was beginning to think they were right, that he had died. She couldn’t bear the thought.
It had made Tatyanna feel alive again to dance that day, but at the same time it reminded her of everything she had lost. Vlad, Yana, the ballet school, even Madame Natalya.
Now she had Yulya and her children and her lively family.
But how long could that last? She couldn’t live with them forever.
She had no home of her own now, no job, no country, no friends, and no family.
And who knew how long the war would last, and when they could get back to Ukraine.
Maybe never. If Symon had died, and it looked that way, who knew what Yulya would do, go back to Kyiv one day, or stay in Warsaw near her brother?
Or move somewhere else? They had all been torn up by their roots, and it was impossible to say where they would replant themselves.
Tatyanna knew she would have to make her own life one day, but all of her old dreams were dead now, Vlad, and dancing with the Bolshoi in Russia.
She would never go to Russia after this cruel war.
She had no teacher now, no ballet partner.
She had been stripped of everything by the war.
They all had. Yulya too, but she at least had a family to protect her.
Tatyanna didn’t even have that, and never had since she was two.
She envied them the warm family they had, and wished she could remain part of it, but at some point she would have to strike out on her own.
It was a frightening prospect and she wasn’t looking forward to that day.
She wanted to stay with Yulya and her family forever.
At the end of dinner, Yulya said she’d had a text from her parents that afternoon.
“Are they okay?” Olek asked her.
“More or less. The Russians are trying to cut them off from the supply lines. They have no medicine, and very little food. Mama says they’re making do, but even their water supply is running low, and every time they set up a humanitarian corridor to let people escape, the Russians shoot them.
They killed a dozen people like that yesterday, including a pregnant woman.
But from the text, Mama and Papa sounded in good spirits.
I think they’re fine as long as they’re together.
If anything happens to one of them, the other will fail very quickly,” Yulya said.
It frightened her for them every day, and they were both at risk at their age, facing such hardships.
They all went upstairs after that, and Daryna wanted to take another look at Tatyanna’s toe shoes. Tatyanna showed them to her and let her try them on, and then Tatyanna put them on and did a few steps on point for her. Daryna was mesmerized by how beautiful Tatyanna looked.
—
Yulya was still asleep when Tatyanna left early for the theater.
Olek said he’d take the kids to school. Normally Tatyanna would have, but she wanted to get to the theater early for her first morning of class.
She couldn’t wait to get there. She could guess that Yulya hadn’t slept for most of the night.
She had dark circles under her eyes all the time now.
She had hardly slept since their home had been bombed, and Symon might be buried under the rubble.
It sounded like the most likely conclusion now.
Yulya hoped he hadn’t suffered. That alone tormented her every night, the thought that he might have died slowly under the collapsed building and never been found.