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There is an old, consigned to oblivion building on a loud street. The heating has not been working for months, years now maybe. There’s no one to fix it and no one to pay for it. The paint on the walls has faded. The beams in some of the rooms on the third floor are exposed. The first and the second have not been affected as badly by time past yet. The third floor has become a realm of dark corners and dusty floors, with deep protruding holes in the walls for birds to fly in. All the walls in the building were once the colour of light blue – resembling purity and freedom. Now, they are stained.
The entrance to the building is a dark-brown narrow door with a rusty knob which makes a squealing sound when turning it, the door creaks when pushed to walk inside. But no one ever hears it. Everyone on this busy street walks by the small three-floored building, indifferent to it or its deprived state.
There is one figure standing in front of the building now. Only one person that has walked inside this building in a long time. And she is here for the large room on the second floor facing the street – harsh light coming through the big dirty windows into what was once a vibrant ballet studio. The wooden floor has not been waxed since before she started coming here alone, the ceiling is greying and webs inhabit every corner. But she does not mind it or care – she is aware of the look of the place, of its quietness and emptiness. The palace of her throbbing heart. And that is precisely why she is here, for its silence which she seeks. The calm of the forgotten and lone. The restfulness of the slow consumption of the place by time. She yearns for this, to quieten the voices in her head, to stop the storm inside her mind, to send away the mist before her eyes to a place from where it can never escape and return inside her.
She is impervious to the voices of people’s conversations outside, the roaring of car engines, the smells of everyone’s perfume, the sound of their problems roaring in their hearts, the flapping butterflies in enamoured ones’ stomachs.
The tonal cries an old building as this one makes caress her ears and place a gentle touch on her cheeks. She walks up the stairs to the second floor heading to the large room where once, years past, she had friends. One could hear subdued laughter when the instructors were not looking and the music would always start playing before they would each take their places; ready to perform their steps until their feet would bleed striving to achieve perfection, which seemed to always be so close but never come. Still, they each kept going day after day, their bodies aching, their hearts trembling, their dreams broken but in continued pursuit.
Only she returns.
There is nothing for her on the first floor. That was where the director, instructors and other staff had their offices and meetings, and the third floor is now out of bounds, though no one has put a warning sign or a protective rope. But she knows. She knows, for she is aware of every inch of this building inside and out. The third floor is falling apart, and there are rats, big spiders and pigeons in there now. Not that they would bother her, she would make her performance and they theirs. It is the parquet flooring that she knows is unreliable and if she went up there, the ceiling of the second floor might collapse. And that is the floor she is here for – the memory of a time never forgotten by her, a time and place abandoned by everyone else.
It is early winter and the cold wind has penetrated inside through the unglazed windows and holes in the walls. She cannot feel it. No weather exists within her body, she can feel neither heat nor cold, neither warmth nor chill.
She is walking up the stairs, they creak as they always have, the echo of her footsteps resonating through the air. She has always been able to hear them, even with the chatter and giggling of the other girls as they would go up to practice. One of them, what her name was she never found out, but she remembers her child-like round face, or maybe she was a child (weren’t they all?), would run up the stairs panting – she was always just about on time, which to the instructors meant late. The girl’s smile never dropped when the old maroon stick would hit her three times on the back, the corners of her mouth would remain upwards. Her eyes would sparkle, no one could ever tell if it was with acceptance and excitement about the upcoming dance, or from tears resting within them, forbidden to come out.
She has arrived on the second floor, the memory of the girl with the round face is gone now, she sees everyone in there and at the same time knows the ample room is empty, light streaks protruding from outside. It’ll start getting dark in two hours, so she’d better begin. She places her bag down on the floor and takes her coat and jumper off. She has scars on her arms – some have a half-moon shape, like marks from fingernails cutting deep into the skin, others are concentric circles, almost beautiful were it not for the pain they revealed. Her slender figure still fits perfectly into her old white tights and light pink leotard which wrap around her in a tight hug. She sits down on the floor to strap on her pointe shoes over her bandaged feet. She does not grimace as they come on and touch the callouses and wounds. Her clothes and shoes are tidy and clean, light smell of lavender resonating from them, that’s how the instructors liked it. She stands up, pointe shoes on and ready.
She still feels no cold, the breeze all around her and on her skin. Her cheeks have reddened and the knuckles on her hands have cuts and have gone pale. She goes to the barre by the windows, does not look down or out, there’s nothing for her there. She turns inward to the stained mirror on the other side of the room, covering the whole opposite wall. Her reflection meets her eyes, the figures nod to each other.
The silhouette in the mirror starts moving – a reflective image of an outstretched right arm going up and down, the fingers pointing up to the ceiling, then the right leg begins to pirouette. She turns and completes the same routine on the other side, mirror reflection and human alike. Both performing melodical movements with their limbs, both covered in specks of bygone days, telling the story of a time passed and people forgotten, now having become a mere memory of what was, an idea of the present ugly reality to bathe in, shimmering at the top to hide that the water is scalding.
She has prepared her body now and turns to the mirror, a portrait en face, looking at whatever it is she recognises in there as she walks closer to it, two identical hers approaching each other, and without looking down or around herself, she stops right in the middle of the room. She stoops and checks the laces of her pointe shoes – they are strapped around her ankles, the cream ribbons pressing against the flesh on her bone. Her fingertips move up to the leotard and she pokes herself in different places around her stomach and ribs, counting them. One she cannot identify as easily and so she frowns immediately. It needs to be rectified, she knows. She feels a tingling on her arm, she turns and sees a small spider. She watches it crawl down to her wrist and blows it away lightly, trying to see how it lands on the floor but it gets lost in the dusty floorboards. Its crawling made her itchy and she scratches her arm urgently, her nails are long, the cuticles chewed down. She needs to dance already, it’s rehearsal time, she cannot be late, she’s never been late or unprepared. Her fingernails leave more marks on her arm, but she has no time to pay attention to them.
She’s standing en pointe, arms up in the air, her shoulders to her ears, turning around slowly to the rhythm of music only she can hear. Her hands fall down halfway, as she turns around herself, one pointed foot on the floor, her other foot gently turned inward, near-touching her calf. Even while she spins and moves, her face to each corner and part of the room, she seeks the mirror and the response it gives her. Will she see the approval of her instructor? Is she as beautiful as she was then? Is her dance neater and better? Will she be selected for the next performance? She looks for a response from the mirror. Fallible body, not enough, more, she receives as an answer.
Despair washes across her face.
Not good enough.
More!
Now, there’s one hand up in the air; a leg is thrown to the left, then to the right, then suddenly goes harshly up. Another hand turns in an obscure position, rests in a claw-like shape in front of her face. Her spine has arched forward, her arms are outstretched back; her knees are bending, crumbling. She jumps up and lands awkwardly, briskly throwing a leg high up behind her, her arms are flapping around, as if moved not by her own volition but by a forceful penetrative wind.
Her legs fly up in the air defying gravity and grace as she jumps up, her arms in between her legs. She lands on her left arm collapsing fully to the floor.
Sigh.
“Again,” she mouths. Anger and panic stretch across her face, pulling her features in all directions. ‘Again,’ she shouts, hearing the voice of the instructor around her and wincing to the side, even though there is no one holding a stick to hit her with. There is no one but her.
She stands up, brushing the dust and pebbles off her leotard and tights, their immaculate presentation destroyed. There’s blood on her left forearm and scratches on her hand she does not see or feel, such minimal degree of pain and injury remains unregistered.
“Again,” she nods.
A song begins to play in her mind – a rhythmic sound of beauty. But her dance is a cacophony of sporadic movements, one not following the other. She moves as if following a deranged melody, chords pulled from every corner of the world into this large room where the last streaks of sun are cruelly entering through the tall windows. There is no song playing, nor does a melody exist that could enfold the shapes she is painting with her shifting body in the air around her. She is a grotesque picture of herself, a sad memory in a deleterious reality.
Her face jerks at every step. She is only as good as each movement her body makes, she is only worth the lack of flaws she has.
This is her memory, she cannot let go.
This is her body, it’s all she has, so she still moves it.
This is her life, she lives it the way they taught her.
She survives today holding onto the past – running for herself, chasing perfection.
She is eclipsed.
About Ilina Trendafilova
Ilina Trendafilova is originally from Bulgaria, but moved to London to pursue higher education. She gained an honours degree in International Relations and subsequently went to Law School. Even though her professional career has taken her into a different route, writing has always been her true passion. At the age of five, she learned how to read and write with the help of her grandma who was a teacher, and has not let go of books and a pen and paper since (nowadays, laptop more often). Her writing usually looks at themes of sexuality, mental health and trauma expressed indirectly through a place, a dialogue, a fantastical creature, or a dance.
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