Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

Her face had gone bright red, whether from the exertion or the thrill of being in his arms, he could not tell. But then she looked at him, and her eyes were serious. ‘No sir,’ she said with pathetic dignity, ‘I dance like an ox, as you well know.’

His smile faltered then reasserted itself. ‘There’s no answer to that,’ he said cheerfully.

‘Thank you for the dance, Miss Julia,’ Tolya said, following Polina out of the door, glancing shyly sideways at Theo, who inclined his head, smiling and formal.

‘You must come,’ she said. ‘Both of you.’

You know, Julia,’ Theo said when they’d gone, ‘I wish you showed the same enthusiasm when we dine with Ilya Andreyevich Volkov and his mother.’

‘They’re boring,’ she said simply. ‘And I can never remember all their names. It’s much easier with Tolya and Polina. They’re just Tolya and Polina.’

‘Oh, you get used to it. And yes, he is a bit of an old bore, and she is practically non-existent, but don’t forget we’re in their house. Eating their food. And I don’t think you realise quite how much that man has done for us. For you . We’re all sold out, everywhere. The entire tour is his doing.’

‘I know. But I don’t like his face. It’s false.’

‘False?’

‘He’s always smiling,’ she said, ‘but his eyes never smile. You’re like that too sometimes.’

‘Isn’t everyone?’

‘Yes, but he’s like that all the time. Anyway you’re not like that with me, only with other people. But he’s like that all the time with everyone. And he laughs too much.’

‘Poor man!’

The ugliest woman in the world, the walking singing dancing impossible woman-beast opened to a packed house. Watching with Volkov from the wings, Theo was almost tearful with pride and anxiety. Look at her. Just look. If she messes it up now. My God, she’s a pit pony, a Trojan, the way she’s gone at it. All this new stuff. Over and over again at midnight, the words, the steps, the dancing fingers on the fret board. And look, all they want is to look at her, eat her face. She could just stand there. What a crowd. Not just hoi polloi this lot, look at those toffs. Volkov beside him spoke some Russian thing, the tone was my God, oh my God. Never ceases to impress. Oh my God, my God, just look at her, what is she — is she even human? Look at their mouths hanging open. She paraded along the front of the stage playing her guitar, singing some old song and swaying her skirts. When she went into her dance, she was so practised she didn’t have to think about it. At least that’s the way it looked. Oh, she’s a good girl she is. Wait’ll she does ‘Lorena’. Oh Lorena . Pure sentiment was a sensation he liked to sniff out, confront and destroy at first stirring, but ‘Lorena’ bashed through all that. ‘This is all the rage at home,’ she’d said, in some godforsaken little hole in Poland, singing it for the first time. She played it now on her harmonica, a thin, slow, plaintive tune. To see those huge lips so sensitively draw such yearning from that old harmonica. Terrible. Quite terrible. Such beauty. Such a surfeit of ugliness. Then she sang:

The years creep slowly by, Lorena,

The snow is on the ground again…

And it was all he could do to keep the tears from his eyes.

The crowd went mad. Volkov bounced up and down, applauding vigorously. Theo could have crowed. Wouldn’t you like to have her? Wouldn’t you just love to steal her away? Don’t worry, you’ll get your cut. Up struck the band. White dress shining in the spotlight, she performed a ballet and a Spanish dance, her old stuff, well perfected, then sang an aria she’d learned specially, one of those Russians. Her voice strained a little at times but recovered itself quickly. ‘Ah now we come to the best bit,’ said Theo. ‘Here come the boys.’ Shouting, laughing, they leapt on stage, they’ve been flattering her and she’s basking in it, very good for the performance. She greets them with a massive smile, the audience draws a breath, the boys take her hands and all three dance in line, a quick-footed jaunt that involves a lot of changing places and backwards and forwards. Here’s where it could all go wrong, the timing must be exact, but she’s got it to a tee, good girl, God they’re loving it, look at their faces, and those boys, the way they gaze at her. They’ll never forget her. Something about these Russian lads, half of them have got the Steppes running in their blood, half wild themselves, I suppose. She does like them. Well, they allow for the costume changes, so necessary, and the crowd likes it. Old Volkov there, she’s right, he has greedy eyes. Look at that ridiculous dance, the old Cossack thing, all hup! hup! hup! as she glides off. Grinning, clapping their hands, dancing backwards. She re-appears as a Scottish lassie in a kilt and throws herself into a wild highland fling, a killer but she handles it. Look at those tiny feet go, slipping against one another like little fishes.

‘You can’t say this girl doesn’t have stamina,’ laughed Volkov with his cold fish eyes. Next she was a sailor in white bell-bottomed trousers, cross-armed, dancing a hornpipe, and then, by God, in less than a minute, a Russian peasant in a red skirt with a fancy apron and a lot of embroidery, trailing long coloured hankies from her fingertips.

The crowd as one stood up and cried ‘Bravo! Bravo!’

‘Oh yes, yes,’ said Volkov. ‘Oh yes, bravo, bravo, bravo.’

She glided round the empty stage as if on wheels, waving the hankies in the air so they coiled and floated lightly with the music, three times round, her massive wild face aloft. The boys and their shiny boots returned, handing her gracefully between themselves into the final dance. They are on springs, their legs fly out, their boot heels crack. And Julia centre stage, quick-stepping, swirling, a butterfly.

Yip! Yip! Yip!

The crowd goes wild.

She finished with a simple Russian folk song, alone with her guitar.

‘Julia,’ Theo said, stepping in front of Volkov to greet her in the wings, ‘my love, you have conquered Mother Russia.’

Polina banked up the fire. ‘There,’ she said, getting heavily to her feet. ‘Keep you lovely and warm.’

Julia lay sprawled on the big sofa with her head on a cushion. ‘Thank you, Polina. Look at the snow! It’s so beautiful.’ Her shoes lay askew on the rug. The snow fell strong and steady past the window. Polina didn’t even give it a glance. ‘You must feel the cold so much,’ she said, stooping to pick up the shoes, ‘coming from a hot country.’

‘Yes,’ said Julia, ‘but I’m beginning to get used to it. It was cold in New York. It was cold in Europe.’

‘Polina,’ said Theo, coming in from the bedroom in his dressing gown and slippers, red wine spilling over his fingers from a tilted glass, ‘did Julia tell you about the show?’ He strode across to the fire and stood grinning before it.

‘A great success,’ said Polina, setting the shoes neatly side by side next to the bedroom door, ‘I knew it would be.’

‘It’s colder here,’ said Julia, ‘but I came in stages so…’

‘A triumph!’ Theo was tight. They’d been drinking downstairs with Volkov and some fat friend of his whose name she couldn’t remember, a prince no less — only prince here didn’t mean the same as in other places, it seemed. Princes and counts abounded. She’d only had one glass of champagne, but the men had polished off half a bottle of vodka before starting on the wine. It had been so boring. ‘And I have to say, Polina,’ Theo gestured with his glass and more wine sloshed, ‘your coaching was a stunning success!’ He laughed. ‘The voice of the people! Where are you from, Polina?’