Hard to Escape

Chapter 26

Without a dancer's legs, I have nothing.

I held back tears. Unwilling to accept all this, I asked, "Then in the past, why did I never have even one public performance? I had fulfilled all your prerequisites, yet why didn't I even have the opportunity to stand in before world? Why?"

Why couldn't I even be spared a beautiful memory? I never had the opportunity to even find out what I once could have accomplished.

Listening to my choked words, Madame Taylor seemed to be a bit moved. "It was what your mother requested. A dancer's journey is long, from their first appearance on stage to the splendor of their last performance. She didn't want you to develop a grand reputation too early and become too involved with the outside world. She also didn't like those endless galas, and didn't want your energy to be wasted on the young men of the French beau monde. The outside world is too enticing. Many girls more talented than you have lost their gifts to such frivolousness."

"You should dance alone, right up until the moment before you mature. Then when you spread your wings, from that moment forth, no one will ever be able to bind you or shroud your brilliance." She seemed to be reciting something as she spoke. "Indeed, you are the naturally gifted and resilient dancer I have ever met. I've told you this before. Suppose one day you throw us all away, perhaps because of my failure to think things through, and then as my pupil you dazzle the public. The media will start to pursue you. Your mother and I shared the same worries. Gaining early media exposure will only make you scatterbrained."

However, the moment of my maturity never came. In the end, I still withered prematurely in a car accident.

Madame Taylor lowered her gaze. "You were once our secret seed. But now you can no longer sprout."

She spoke that line with total certainty, leaving no room for doubt. It was as if, in her eyes, I was merely a vessel for ballet. I finally couldn't stop my tears from tumbling down. "I want to relearn how to dance. Please Madame, continue to teach me."

But Madame Taylor shook her head. "What do you even remember now, of ballet? I don't accept dancers who won't be leaving any trace of themselves in the history of ballet, let alone someone with no future as a dancer, who I'd have to completely remold. You don't even know a single drop of the basics. I don't want to see a clumsy Alicia. My memory of you will forever be of your precise, fluid movements."

"And perhaps this way, it won't be as cruel. You've never appeared in the public eye and never experienced the world's expectations of you. Furthermore, there won't be as many spectators left heartbroken from your fall from greatness. On the contrary, this won't give you any pressure and is a happy ending for you."

However, is this really not cruel? To the artistic world, my life's work is like a dragonfly skimming the water's surface; a mere, ephemeral passing. Time can erase its every trace. In the end, it will be as if it never even happened. If so, what would be left to signify that it has been snuffed out?

"So you're only willing to acknowledge the Alicia that can dance, and in your eyes, I am nothing? Don't you feel like this is unfair to me? How can you call this a good conclusion for me?! Supposing if I had instead gotten my chance to shine, would it now be preferable for me to have just died, rather than becoming a cripple who can't dance? Don't you think this is selfish?"

"Dance has always been a selfish art. Ballet even more so. If it were the past you, you would understand that from your own experience, even more so than I. Every dancer, for the sake of becoming principal, must be an extremely selfish person. Stealing the gaze of the entire audience, is precisely how ballet is conveyed."

The eyes with which Madame Taylor stared at me seemed to look down on me from high above, pitying me. "You even forgot that. A dancer must be indifferent enough to be able to support the weight of her whole body on the tip of her toe. Indifferent enough to support the weight of the entire audience's scrutiny. Ballet has always been a cruel art. Now, you not only don't have the legs for ballet, you've even lost the mindset necessary for it. You aren't Alicia. You aren't a dancer. I don't acknowledge you."