Chapter 8 #2
“That was my dream. I always wanted to dance in Paris. My partner and I wanted to dance with the Bolshoi for a few years, and then try to find jobs in Paris for both of us after that. I wasn’t even thinking of it now anymore.” Ukrainian refugees had taken up most of the available places in ballet.
“Does it interest you at all, Tatyanna? I don’t want to let you slip through our fingers.
But if I send you instead of one of our dancers, it would keep you dancing with an excellent company in the meantime, which would look good on your resume, and when we have an opening here, we could ‘untrade’ you and bring you back to Warsaw.
I think it’s the best deal I can offer you right now, even though it’s not with us.
It would be a very unusual solution, and leave me overstaffed here, but we’re making it work.
I haven’t contacted them yet about sending someone there.
I wanted to ask you first how you’d feel about going to Paris.
I think they would agree, especially if we send them a video of you dancing.
They’d be very lucky to have you even for a short time, or however long you decide to stay.
” Tatyanna sat in silence for a minute, letting the idea sink in, and she smiled at him.
“I would love it,” she said, smiling broadly.
It was a fantastic opportunity she didn’t want to pass up.
She was comfortable and happy living with Yulya and her family, but she knew she couldn’t stay there forever.
And this would be something familiar to her.
It had been one of her dreams before the war.
“The salary is decent—their pay scale is a little higher than ours, and you certainly deserve it. And they have a family in the city that you could stay with. You’d be dancing day and night anyway, between classes, rehearsals, and performances.”
“It sounds unbelievable.” She was glowing with excitement.
“Let me call them and see what they say.” He smiled at her and ended the meeting a few minutes later. She walked all the way back to Yulya’s. She wanted some time and exercise to clear her head.
When she got to Yulya’s family’s house, no one was home.
She knew that Yulya had a meeting of the newly formed group of refugee women that morning, the kids were in school, and Olek and Nina were at work.
Tatyanna loved the idea of dancing again, and working.
Just the few classes she’d taken that week had brought out her old strengths and she longed to be steeped in that milieu again.
It was the only life she knew, and she missed it so much.
Ballet had been her entire life since she was four.
She sat on the couch in the living room, stroking the dog, and thinking about everything Nikolai had said about the job in Paris, if they wanted to give it to her.
She really didn’t want to leave Yulya and her family, but they weren’t going to adopt her, and she would have to leave them eventually, and better now with an opportunity waiting for her, than at a time when she might not be able to get a job dancing.
Plenty of talented dancers gave up dancing for a variety of reasons.
It was a hard and short-lived career, like being a football player, and later all she could do was teach.
But she was approaching the apex of her career now, despite the war and being a refugee.
And Nikolai was giving her a chance to continue her upward trajectory.
She could guess what Vlad would have advised her.
He would have told her to take the job in Paris, and with any luck he would have come with her.
Now she had to go alone. It was daunting to go to a new city, live with people she didn’t know, dance in a company where she knew no one, in a language she didn’t speak.
Yulya had facilitated everything for her in Warsaw.
But she was in the same situation she’d been in when she boarded the train in Kyiv.
Yulya and her family had been a gift of destiny she hadn’t expected. And now she would be moving on.
Nikolai had said he would let her know as soon as he heard something, and the next morning when she went to class, he came to see her himself.
She hadn’t said anything to Yulya, as she wasn’t sure she’d get the job and there was no point talking about it and upsetting them.
The children were going to miss her, and she would miss them, and Yulya.
Nikolai was smiling when he approached her, and her heart beat faster, with fear and excitement.
She felt as though she had been carried along on a tidal wave ever since the war started and had no control over her life.
After all her years of being sheltered and protected at the school, suddenly she was being cast into the open ocean with enormous waves all around her that could drown her at any time.
But dancing in Paris was a good wave that could advance her career if she met the challenge.
“They want you,” Nikolai said simply when he reached her, as she entered the classroom.
She felt dizzy for a minute. “We’ll give you all the details written out, and the French government is accepting refugees from Ukraine.
You’ll get free medical care, free train transportation to get there, and an allowance from the government as well as your salary.
” She knew it was an enormous blessing, but suddenly she was terrified.
What if she wasn’t good enough, if they didn’t like her, or she failed?
Tears filled her eyes as she thought of leaving Yulya and the children.
It was like leaving all she knew as home all over again.
She had no one to protect her in an unfamiliar world at eighteen. And Yulya was like a big sister to her.
She tried to follow the class after he told her, and was so distracted she made countless mistakes.
She picked up the paperwork at Nikolai’s office before she left, and saw that they wanted her in Paris by the following Monday.
She had to leave on Sunday, in three days.
She thanked Nikolai again and took a bus back to the apartment.
She told the family that night at dinner.
There was shocked silence for a minute, and then everyone cried, and Tatyanna did too.
It was supposed to be a good thing, and Yulya was sure it would be.
But Tatyanna had lived with them for two months in dire circumstances, and they were her only family now.
“We’ll come see you in Paris,” Yulya said, trying to make the best of it, as Daryna sat on Tatyanna’s lap and clung to her, and Tatyanna held her tight. Even Pavlo cried. They had lost so much and so many people they loved that it was agony to lose one more, and it felt that way to Tatyanna too.
She spent every minute she could with them for the next three days, and bought everyone in the family gifts before she left.
The Paris company had given her a small advance to help her with any traveling expenses and she spent most of it on them.
She gave Daryna a little gold necklace with half a gold heart on it, and had the same one herself with the other half of the heart.
“I’ll come home to see you whenever I get a holiday,” she promised them.
But where was home now, for any of them?
Tatyanna still wanted to go back to Ukraine, but when would that even be possible?
Maybe not for many years. The children might even be grown up by then.
Tatyanna felt as though she was going to drift forever, and never have roots again.
“And don’t forget, they said that if a place opens up at the ballet here in Warsaw, they’ll bring me back.
If you’re still here, I’ll come back from Paris and dance here. ”
“Paris is a beautiful place and a fantastic opportunity for you,” Yulya reminded her.
But it felt like another huge loss when they all went to the train station with her on Sunday morning.
It was a terrible déjà vu for them now. She had a free pass for the train, as a refugee, and was carrying only her one small suitcase and no garbage bag this time.
All she needed were leotards and her toe shoes.
She needed new ones, but Nikolai had told her that the dance company in Paris would supply them.
She had Yana’s toe shoes with her too, for good luck.