Time Leaves its Mark
Alone in my tower, I conjure Trix in my mind.
A handful of mortal years are nothing against the ocean of timelessness on which I now drift – if I do not keep her face alive in my memory, her voice, her dancing, they will all fade.
I persuade a dove to bring me jasmine leaves, so that I can remember her perfume.
Press my hands against the stone windowsill with closed eyes, trying to recall the momentum of her body in a pirouette.
I try, hardest of all, to remember when I knew.
If there had been a precise moment, but I had simply been too oblivious, too convinced of the narratives I had been given about myself, to notice it.
I think of Armand before he married Carolyn, standing in an empty row during a stage call, preserving her image in snapshots.
I wonder when the appreciation became admiration, the admiration became attraction, and attraction became love.
How long did it take for the lines of Carolyn’s figure, the tint of her hair, the light in her face, to find their way into his thoughts long after putting the camera down?
I should have asked him.
* * *
The role of Aurora got Trix promoted, but most dancers of her generation would say that Giselle made her famous.
It was a huge ballet for both of us. Even for me, who could not feel tired if I tried, Albrecht was a great achievement because the role demanded so much.
It was not the jumping but the acting, the intention behind the steps.
Albrecht’s struggle with his desire for freedom and independence, to play at being ordinary for a day in defiance of his obligations to the high-born woman he does not love.
His terror when Myrtha sentences him to dance to the death.
I had seen that terror only a handful of times in other beings’ faces, magical and mortal both.
As for Trix, well – she left herself behind in the wings.
Out of the cottage door stepped this real peasant woman from Germany of old.
Ignorant of her own ignorance, trusting and fragile and, by the end of Act I, broken beyond repair.
And all she did was let her hair out of its bun.
No matter how many times she fell down dead, I did not need to act.
I always held her tight until Noemi batted me away.
It pained me to watch Trix in Act II, more than I had expected.
I felt a version of that pain on behalf of every ballerina I watched in the role, because I would never wish such a half-life upon any of them.
But when Trix stepped out in her veil, eyes cast down, skin powdered white…
by the time she bourréed away from me in the final scene and melted into the dawn, I was crying.
I wanted to reach out and pull her into my arms, back to safety. Not you. Please, never you.
I did not know what to make of this new, uncharted emotion, but I feared where it could lead.
For a time, I did not even mention it to Glen, the only confidant I had ever had in either world.
Instead, I thought of the darkest ditch, the murkiest peat bogs, the deepest rivers, and buried the feeling there.
And then – elements preserve me – came La Bayadère.
A fresh new staging, the headline production of the season.
Trix was nervous about dancing Nikiya, as if she had not just dazzled audiences as Giselle, one of the most difficult lead roles a ballerina can perform.
But Nikiya, as we both came to realise, is just as demanding.
There is no time to rest on laurels; so much control is required, and yet also fluidity.
Sensuality. I had heard that word before, but it was not until our stage call that I came to my own understanding of it.
Trix transformed once again, not just into another human, but another being.
Her costumes were like something from court, only much…
less. As she put it, ‘There’s nowhere to hide. ’
Not that she needed to. Why she would want to hide anything was beyond me – everything I saw was beautiful in a way that sharpened my senses and thinned the air.
I wanted to pause the entire performance, wrap my arms around her bare ribs, and kiss her, deeply, until whatever fire was kindling in my chest cooled off.
I ran out to meet her as Solor for our first pas de deux without needing to think. I felt so lucky. And bewildered.
None of the Silver folk are that much more enthusiastic about the idea of sex than me (which is to say, not at all) but their zeal for growing the population has elevated the activity to near-sacred heights.
They expected me to be thrilled when my father announced my betrothal to Cressida, known for her wide hips, ideal for childbearing.
I have always felt about her the way Solor feels about Gamzatti, who is presented to him like a medal for his services as a warrior.
After Nikiya’s death, he reluctantly proceeds with the wedding, only to see a vision of Nikiya on the top step of the sacred temple, in a celestial white version of the red outfit in which she died.
I remember every moment from that scene: releasing Akihiko’s hands, taking Trix’s to dance with her instead, playing my part even though it felt less like play and more like an epiphany.
I could practically see Glen’s gestures all the way from our flat in Kentish Town: Are you joking?
You went to all this trouble to get away from a lady, and now your eyes have fallen on another?
On a mortal? What is wrong with you? Is this honestly what you want?
As I promenaded Trix in a circle, as she entrusted her body to me, I realised the answer was yes. Yes? Yes.
‘But what do you mean “yes”?’ Glen later asked, when I tried to explain all of this to him. ‘You want to have sex with her?’
‘No! I want…’ The words came from the Carpenters on the radio waves. ‘I want to be close to her.’
Glen raised sceptical eyebrows. ‘Well… as long as you’re not falling in love with her.’
‘No,’ I said, with unwarranted certainty. ‘Love is not for the likes of us. It must be something else.’
‘You had better hope so, Nimble.’
He only called me that when I was at risk of forgetting myself.
* * *
By our second Nutcracker together, I was dabbing at sweat trails of glitter on Trix’s face and joking that the Sugar Plum Fairy cried champagne. Little acts like this, touching her face, kissing her hand between révérences – I had never done those things with other dancers.
‘Time is finally leaving its mark on you,’ Glen said.
I waited for him to explain. ‘Whenever I used to ask you about the future, how long you planned to put off your wedding to Cressida, you would wave your hand and say that there was no future, only the gift of a new day in the Restless Lands. But you have been a dual citizen almost ten years, my friend. And you have a reason to think of the future.’
‘I wish time would leave its mark on me.’ I sighed. ‘What I said then, it is true now: there is no future. There cannot be. So I still do not like to think on it. I wish Trix and I could dance together forever. That she could stay just as she is.’
‘Your glamour can only help her for so long,’ Glen reminded me, before taking pity. ‘Does being with her make you happy?’
‘Have you not been listening to me of late?’
‘Then go back to living for the present day. Enjoy being happy! It suits you.’
It was true that being in such close and constant proximity to my glamour kept Trix safe in a career where, regardless of age or rank, injury threatened to swoop down and claim dancers at any moment. But I had not actively wielded it in her favour since Beauty.
I could have helped her for Swan Lake, when she was drilling fouettés every day and reprimanding herself for the tiniest mistakes.
I could have helped her hit all thirty-two.
But I did not want to cheat her of genuine victory, and knew that she was strong enough to manage it.
So did Mariska and Salvatore. Even Roksana Kutuzova, who was, as the other dancers phrased it, “a hard nut”, and who gave Trix almost as hard a time as Trix gave herself.
Me, they had few problems with. They liked how easy I found it to infuse the role of Prince Siegfried with the right emotions. I said nothing except my thanks.
Trix was determined to make her Odile as authentic as her Odette, to prove that she was both of these women in her own life. I could not imagine Trix as a scheming seductress, so I asked her which part of Odile she meant. The confidence? Yes. The allure? Absolutely. But deception?
‘When have you ever deceived anyone?’
The way she suddenly glanced off made me wonder how many times I had responded like that in front of her.
‘Perhaps deceive isn’t the right word. But I have… I do hide things. There are some things one simply doesn’t share with other people. You must have secrets you wouldn’t share with just anyone.’
She held my gaze as if waiting for something. I could not even nod, in case the truth was dislodged.
Our Swan Lake was well received. The critics praised our expression and storytelling, on par with our technique.
When Trix was Odile, I was at her mercy; when she was Odette, I held her with longing, yearning to tell this beautiful being, even as we were separated by someone else’s designs, that no title or inheritance could persuade me to leave her.