Begin the Dance

Begin the Dance


He walks away. That is always the moment when she loves him the most, the moment she sees his figure disappearing down the street. The first rays of dawn flicker on his back like black and white images on a silver screen, slowly being turned into sepia tones by the rising sun.

For her it was always like watching time run forward.

She closes her eyes and arches her back. One hand is holding onto the windowsill while the other draws a perfect arc in the air above her head.

She smiles because there is no-one to witness her movements. No audience, no Madame L.
There are no mirrors in her bedroom, a little universe of her own. Outside this room she lives her life in front of mirrors.

The first mirror was the one in the dance studio. She has in fact come to realize that the all other mirrors to come have only been extensions of that first mirror. It was a large mirror, covering the whole entire north-facing wall. Everything that went on in the room reflected in this wall. It was like an all seeing eye, for it not only showed physical forms, it was also ruthless and unforgiving in betraying all her mistakes and shortcomings to all her little comrades, all the sweet little girls, more enemies than friends, who closely followed and copied the silent but unmistakeable disapproval and contempt of their instructor, Madame L. At the beginning there had been many mistakes. Dance, as posed and elegant as Madame's, did not come naturally to all nor does it come cheap. Although they started as portraying faeries and flowers, we where soon encouraged to forgo our childhood and "to put away childish things", as the saying goes.
Too soon has the passing years wiped away all the mistakes and made her invisible. From now on, all the people are going to see is the Dancer.

She performs at the Grand Opera House that sits in the comfortable surroundings of the Old Town. The outer facade of the building is of creamy coloured sandstone. Grecian pillars stand smugly defying the elements of Nature. The gilded doors with bottle-green glass panels lead the way inside into an opulent dream full of crimson velvet and gilded baby cherubs.
This dream is made available to anyone for a price.
All the staff, headliners and stagehands alike, calls it "The Gilded Gage". For the price of a ticket, the audience gets to borrow the key to the lock for the evening.
The audience is always full on the evenings she is performing in a production. Is it because of her or her role? "Don't ask, don't question" they had told her when her turn came. "After all it is not you they see on the stage, it is the story".
Every evening, one after the other is full of stories, dreams and illusions
She no longer needs mirrors to reflect her movements. Instead she can see her reflection on the faces of the audience. And the gasps and the expressions of admiration and awe that the dreamy sighs and the thunderous applause in the end tell her that her dancing has been flawless.





After the show, flowers are delivered to her deceptively private dressing room. Every bouquet has a card attached, promising eternal admiration and love. Admittedly beautiful, the flowers are hothouse flowers and therefore without any natural scent. Their falseness is echoed in the messages accompanying them.
She attaches the card on the frame of her dressing table mirror until most of the surface of the mirror is covered and there is hardly room left for her face.

After all the traces of the stage make-up are gone from her face, she sets her hair loose, wraps her coat around her slight shoulders and steps out into the back alley.
She does not care if it's raining.

There he stands, in a little lonely island of light created by the streetlamp. A black felt hat on his head is pulled down low and tilted in order to cover his face from the rain. He doesn't have an umbrella. He was once given one, but it soon broke. He has his back turned against her and yet he seems to sense the arrival of an other.
Turning around he sees the cigarette in her hand and bends down to light it. Drops of rain falls from the prim of his hat and land on the top of her head.
He wasn't expecting her and questions flash across his face. He doesn't seem to recognize her and wonders out loud what she is doing at the stage door, in a rainy back alley and in the less than glamorous hours of the night.
He offers to see her home.
An offer she certainly has heard before, yet there is no expectancy or desperation hidden behind the words.
He remains silent, his eyes exploring her rain soaked face. Smoke from her cigarette spirals upwards and settles between them like a veil of grey.
A veil could easily cover or distraught an image in a mirror. Knowing this she looks deep into his grey eyes but fails to find any trace of the familiar image, The Dancer.

Always after leaving her place in the morning, he pictures her stretching. This always makes him think of a cat, a sleek black cat stretching its slight body and then settling down on the bed with a bored yet satisfied expression in her eyes the colour of a green Irish moor.
He has been told that a man could get easily lost on a moor. That is the place that makes him love her the most.


                      The End