Chapter 18 #2
I held onto his arm and got close enough that my cheek brushed his T-shirt.
(‘There you go.’) The fabric was still, inexplicably, dry.
I felt like a melting ice cream cone by comparison, physically and mentally – when Salvatore stood in as the mayor and tried once again to join Franz’s and Swanilda’s hands, only for her to pull away and shake her head in an adamant “no”, I went beyond pantomime and let out a petulant “neeeooo”, like a cat displeased with its dinner.
Sander burst out laughing, a sound so rare and pure that it left everyone else in stitches.
‘Keep that energy,’ Mariska said once she’d wiped her eyes. ‘In silence, of course, but goodness me, keep that energy.’
It was, strangely, my proudest accomplishment of the day.
By the end of Act I, Swanilda reluctantly reconciles with her beau and agrees to go ahead with the celebration. Sander pulled me into another hug; I tried to quash my embarrassment at the sweat patches down the back of my leotard.
‘Your friends tell you, “Come, come, we must finish wedding planning”,’ Mariska directed, as I bent forward with the imaginary force of two friends pulling on my arms. ‘But, oh! You cannot resist going back for a second time.’
‘More smiling!’ Salvatore called. ‘He’s a rascal, but you still love him!’
A second hug, shorter, but more full-bodied.
As humble countryfolk, our embraces were more organic and relaxed than the delicate, formal ones of Princess Aurora and Prince Florimund.
My fingers brushed the top of his spine.
Pressed close to his neck, I picked up the bright green scent of new leaves.
When I went in for the third and final hug, Sander held me off the ground with my arms wrapped around him, my pointes in the air like a duck’s tail.
‘Very nice.’ Mariska checked her watch. ‘Could you bear to run the grand pas? Just the once?’
“Just the once” always meant at least three times, but the energy in the studio had changed for the better, and we were on the home stretch, so I agreed.
In stark contrast to the group numbers of Act I and the merry chaos of Act II, the grand pas of Act III has a lot in common with the grand pas in Act III of Beauty: it is slow, tender, controlled, and demands a lot of trust between partners.
The first of several challenging lifts – presumably put there to warn dancers against getting too comfortable – required me to stand behind Sander as he knelt and then, when his arm was snugly around my hips, tip forward until I was fully horizontal.
When I was sufficiently secure, Sander stood to full height and walked me across the studio (‘Careful how much ground you cover,’ Salvatore reminded him, ‘right now you’re walking into the percussion section. ’).
The second complex lift took a few tries and involved a great deal of manual adjustment from Mariska and Salvatore – I reversed into it, Sander holding my bent knees under one hand and my breastbone under the other.
He found that easy enough, but then had to figure out how to rotate and lower me at the same time, so that I wound up draped over his knee with my face to the ceiling.
It was almost refreshing to watch him during this part of the rehearsal process, where nothing can be perfected until it is first attempted, often with messy results.
He fumbled twice on the rotation, but at least his reflexes saved me from an ungainly landing on the floorboards.
Once he got a handle on the logistics, the lift was seamless, and I could focus on extending my arm and pointed leg as far from each other as possible.
‘Yes, that’s it, relax over him,’ Mariska said, standing directly above us. ‘Allongé, lengthen, lengthen, lengthen. Get that hand as close to the floor as you can, but don’t lose the form. Don’t let your head fall back too far, but don’t make your neck stiff. Serene, serene.’
I quietly baulked at the thought that, onstage, we’d have to do this lift twice in a row.
‘We’ll have to leave it there, save the last lift for tomorrow,’ Salvatore said, checking his watch. Lori began to pack away her sheet music.
Mariska looked rueful. ‘Oh, must we? I hate to leave a grand pas unfinished.’
As did I, although I couldn’t help but quote her own maxim back at her: ‘A grand pas is never finished. And I do need to have something left in my legs for tomorrow.’
She nodded in concession, and clapped, as did we – the signal that, at long last, our rehearsal was concluded.
Until tomorrow, when we would do it all again, better than today and with greater attention to detail.
I loved it. All of it. My brain was awash with endorphins and the excitement of more dancing to come. I felt depleted and yet, alive.
While I was stuffing things back into my bag, Sander reached for his own and accidentally placed his hand on mine.
‘Sorry—’ he began, but fell quiet when I sandwiched it with my other hand on top, keeping my expression deadpan.
He raised an eyebrow, then did the same thing, catching on – in Act I, Swanilda chases a butterfly and only manages to cup it in her hands with Franz’s assistance, making a game with their palms. I kept going until I had to rise on demi-pointe to reach my hands high enough, at which point he laughed again.
His smile was so warm, I hoped I could find a way to make him laugh in every rehearsal from then on.