Sari Wilson

Midnight in a Perfect World

"In dance, the speaker, without saying a word, persuades the spectators through his movements that he is gallant and worthy to be acclaimed, admired, and loved."
— Thoinot Arbeau (1519–1596),
from Six Qualifications for a Good Dancer

Prologue

1974

A forest glade bathed in moonlight. A pack of sylphs glide through the forest in the luminous eerie light, like candles in a dark room, their long skirts swaying as if a draft had swept in. They rise on their toes, pull away from the earth. With small, authoritative waves of her hand, the leader of this army of beautiful ghosts, an austere woman with a shorter tutu, signals the group to begin. Together, they raise their legs in a penche; together, they tips their torsos over as if looking into a deep well.

Isabelle knows this place; she knows these people; they are Val, Felicia, Gwen, and beautiful Robin. A whole army of them standing on their points with wide translucent umbrellas of chiffon and tulle around their legs. They hop like birds, an echo of Giselle’s movements from the first act. The lighting is a bluish purple, like a bruise. The music, springy and light, like in the first act of The Little Prince’s Troubles. But this is death. In death, everything is clean and orderly.

The Queen, in her long tutu and wand, dances a solo with two flowers that she waves in the air. In delicate, painstaking steps, Giselle bows before the Queen. Giselle is the newest initiate of the Willies. Albrecht arrives, searching for his love, knowing his betrayal killed her. The Queen of the Willies shakes her head regally, lifts her sternum, and points her finger; she condemns Albrecht to death—not their twilight death, but real death. Albrecht will dance to his death as Giselle danced to hers. The music swings between the light floating-leaf motif and a darker, louder, chaotic swirl of pounding drums, moaning cello, and excited bleating oboe. Albrecht leaps and turns. His leg beats are wild, out of control. Soon, he stumbles and falls, exhausted.

A rosy morning blush begins to creep over the forest. The dawn is coming. Albrecht is exhausted but not dead; Giselle has saved him. But she is a creature of the night now and it is time for her to descend back into her grave. With his last remaining strength, Albrecht bows to her in an agony of gratitude. Then comes the drum roll, the final trembling oboe, and the curtain falls. The whole house explodes into applause and shouts of “Bravo!”

Isabelle, face flushed and eyes bright, stands and says to her parents, “I’m going downstairs.”

They look at her in surprise. “Okay, be careful. We’ll meet you down there.”

Isabelle stumbles down three flights of carpeted stairs and into the deserted grandeur of the lobby, yanks the orchestra doors open to a packed and thundering proscenium of carpeted walls blaring with lights, the roaring belly of a beast. She fights through the forest of legs in the front rows to reach the orchestra pit railing, a place where there are no other human faces between herself and the dancers. She manages to squeeze herself to within a row or two of the railing and then she can’t move anymore. Worse, the bodies of the people around her prevent her from seeing the stage at all. She is immobilized by the featureless backlit shadows. She has no room to navigate. Her head reaches only the ribcages of the people around her. As shadows in front of her jostle for position, she catches a sliver of the stage: the royal yellow curtain that glows with a greenish tinge under the spotlight, the ballerina’s legs. One of the shadowed faces turns away from the performers. A small, slight man in a black suit peers down at her—she has the strange feeling that she recognizes him from somewhere, but she can’t place it. She can tell by the faint moustache that looks like it was drawn on with a magic marker, the pale face, the pointy features. He reaches down to her.

“Oh,” he says. “Poor thing. Can you see?”

She shakes her head.

“Here,” he says, bending down and helping her up onto the armrest of an empty chair. She sees from his face that he is as captivated by the moment as she is, although it has made him melancholy, whereas it has made her ruthless. Now she stands above the crowd with an unobstructed view, one hand on this man’s shoulder for balance. Beneath his suit, it feels like cardboard.

The dancer who played Albrecht hands Giselle a bouquet of roses. They bounce on their stems—from one arm cradle to another, the impression is of veins and muscles, sweat and a crumbling mask of industrial strength make-up. Albrecht’s face is orange, his feline eyes outlined with mascara and eyeliner, his thigh muscles bulge; she sees the toe of his ballet slippers scuffed from this one performance. His arch, as he rests his left foot behind him, is perfect. She sees the tautness and sinew of the ballerina’s arm muscles—like rubber bands stretched over bone—the austere angularity of her face, her large eyes highlighted by the makeup. She sees in that moment, what she has heard only whispers of, and what she has begun to suspect, that behind the milky-eye sweet fairytale version of ballet, there is a long field of more effort than can be imagined. Behind the glory of beauty, there is the glory of sinew and sweat.

She fixes her eyes on the dancer’s faces and shouts Bravo! Bravo!

The small man looks at her with delight. “Bravissima! Darling, you were divine! Dee-vine!”

“Bravo,” she calls.

“Bravissima,” he calls.

“Bravo!” she calls.

“Bravissima!” Then he laughs. His laugh is a piercing cutting sound like bells run through a knife sharpener.

Isabelle takes her hand off the man’s shoulder and stands alone balancing above the crowd; she shouts her Bravos! until she is hoarse. She is like the church worshipper who sits in the first pew and closes her eyes, muttering prayers along with the priest, so that she can hear her own voice in her ears. As quickly as it comes, the feeling of power and authority leaves and Isabelle is unstable on the tiny arm rest, nervous about falling. She moves so she can get a better grip on the man’s shoulder.

He turns to her. He smells like apples, cinnamon and something else more sour.
Then she can see her parents' faces, her mother’s worried brow and her father’s red shiny face bobbing toward her like apples in a barrel full of water. She holds off signaling them, but they spot her and begin moving toward her and Maurice quickly and steadily as if following in a wake. Maurice falls back into the crowd like a shark sliding back beneath the surface. When Isabelle falls against her father’s burly chest, she is afraid.

• top •