Kseniya Melnik - Snow in May - Stories

One of the chess boys barged into the office.

“How many times have I told you to knock before entering?” Roman Ivanovich yelled. Was this one Gleb?

“I just needed you to approve the player matchups.” The boy pulled his thin neck into his shoulders. His trembling arm held out a piece of paper. Roman Ivanovich glanced over the sheet, made some marks, and handed it back.

“Tell everyone to be quiet at the tables.”

The boy slinked out. Roman Ivanovich turned to the corner plastered with photographs of Lyuba and Pavlik in poses or holding up trophies. He made the sign of the cross, then tightened his belt and walked out into the studio.

The girls stood in clusters, twisting their feet on high silver heels. Some boys were observing the chess games. More loud voices came from the boys’ changing room. Someone must’ve brought in the latest comic book or a Game Boy. What were those boys interested in? Certainly not the girls, not yet. The junior girls still belonged to him.

Asik sat on the windowsill, which Roman Ivanovich forbade, banging the expensive satin shoes he’d ordered for her from Moscow against the rusty radiator. Both her short bob and her outfit — a long-sleeved ballet shirt and jeans — violated the studio rules. He wondered whether the junior instructors had really forgotten to drill in the studio regulations.

He clapped three times, and the boys began appearing on the dance floor. Asik jumped down. She was thinner, darker, and at least two centimeters taller than in the spring. The chess section turned to watch.

“Girls, a dress code reminder. Tight skirts no longer than halfway down the thigh,” Roman Ivanovich began in an impartial tone. “Black tights, no leg warmers. I need to see the lines of your body clearly. Hair no shorter than one-third down the upper arm, in a bun or a ponytail. If your other instructors didn’t require it before, fine. These are the rules for the junior group,” he added for Asik’s benefit but didn’t look her way.

“I’m sure I don’t have to remind you about the no-dating policy. No boyfriends or girlfriends, no little love associations. Not the dancers, not the chess players. You will be expelled. Now, I’ll be making some partner switches based on May’s results. This is not up for discussion, so please spare me the whining. Igor,” he addressed Asik’s partner, “you will dance with Olesya.” He was tall enough now.

The ballroom mothers (Olesya’s mother the most involved among them) lobbied fiercely for the few talented tall boys. They invited the boys’ mothers for dinner, bought the boys dance shoes and gifts, and bribed the poorer families. Roman Ivanovich, however, still had the final — often paid for — word in the matchmaking process.

“And Sasha will dance with Asya.”

The room gasped. The boys moved obediently, like chess pieces. Asik looked up at handsome Sasha, then looked down, chewing a smile. Sasha’s main merits were his height, a solid sense of coordination, and a tolerance for being bossed around, which Olesya had exploited with impressive results at the competitions.

“But Roman Ivanovich,” Olesya began, her voice tripping over swells of injustice, “it’s—”

“No discussions. Now, everyone, let’s start with the basic samba walk to remind your lazy butts what it means to dance. And no sitting on the windowsills!”

The children formed a circle. Roman Ivanovich noticed Olesya creeping toward the exit.

“That’ll have to wait till the bathroom break,” he said. He couldn’t stand tears.

He walked to the CD player, nailing his heels into the parquet, and turned on the music. And they were rusty, his little pupils, oh, they were rusty after the summer rains. Sonya, who had once been his pet, seemed to have completely forgotten how to use her feet. Unable to delay it any longer, he found Asik in the bouncing roundelay. Her hips were indescribable — two distinct entities, each containing a delayed-action spring. When the right hip moved, the left hip lingered, teasing, then snapped to catch up. She walked swinging and swaying. For several counts she looked straight ahead, and then she looked at him and smiled.

* * *

As the fall term progressed, Roman Ivanovich submerged himself in the Asik project. For a month, she was a dream. She personalized every detail he pointed out on the competition tapes — syncopated click of the knee, degree tilt of the hips, pecking nod versus ladling bow. Even her ribbon lips danced, shaping words the true meaning of which she couldn’t possibly understand, in languages she couldn’t know.

Although she was a perfect china doll in the waltzes, fox-trots, and quicksteps, her hips were too impatient for the standard set. Latin dances were her forte. She danced paso doble like the daughter of Bizet’s proud Carmen, little Carmenochka. A scarlet costume flower she insisted on wearing at practices gleamed against her bluish-black hair. Her samba was pure and easy, as though she’d shaken her backside in Rio de Janeiro’s carnivals since she could walk. Her rumba was transfused with imaginary love and heartbreak. Whenever Nata passed through the studio, she stopped to watch Asik. Sometimes Olesya would run up to Nata and plead to be switched back to her old partner, but Nata only nodded and glanced toward Roman Ivanovich with blind faith.

For a month, he was happy. Everything was justified: the lost income, the unpleasant phone conversations with Olesya’s mother, the gossip he knew was being chewed like cud behind the changing-room curtains and at the dinner tables.

Then, at the beginning of November, Asik became unpredictable and moody, an ungrateful little caterpillar. Some days she switched herself off. Her hip springs creaked. She yelled at Sasha and threw around her sharp-heeled sandals, the satin of which was already filthy from improper care. Sasha endured her moods with a calm that baffled Roman Ivanovich.

He could tell she was making mistakes on purpose. His usual tactic was to roar and spank the applicable backsides. But with her, he held back. During private lessons, he coolly drew loops and turns with her hips, feeling her sharp, small bones slide under his fingers. At group practices, he first ignored her tantrums, then broke down and asked Sasha to step aside. With him, she quickly corrected her errors and danced so tastily one could bite one’s fingers off.

Asik kept breaking studio rules. She’d come in late, walk through the studio in slush-caked boots, slack off during warm-ups, wear baggy sweaters, and go to the bathroom whenever she pleased. He’d had to assign a special chess boy to mop up the street slush after her. Some days he could almost see the other girls bristling in her presence.

More and more Asik was becoming just another rude girl of twelve, with stooped shoulders and a messy ponytail, angry at the cold wind for chapping her lips and stripping her summer tan. He’d always considered that handling cranky girls was a part of his profession. But with her, he was stumped. To punish her was to admit he’d made a mistake.

* * *

“You should be careful with that Nemirovskaya girl, Roma,” Nata said to him one evening at the end of November. With less than a month to go until the winter competition, she was buried under a mountain of fluorescent satin and tulle, sewing new dresses for the rich girls and tailoring rentals for the others. “I know she’s not just another one of your dancey girls. But you’re alienating everyone else, and they pay. We’ve got plenty of couples who work hard, and who may yet hatch when they move up.”

Stupid, naive, comfortable Nata. The senior girls were lost to him. Those who stood a chance of scholarships to universities in Moscow or St. Petersburg studied maniacally. The ones stuck in Magadan worked their assets on the local potato oligarchs in hopes of securing a warm, well-fed life.