I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [19]
At Seda’s, there were about ten little girls dressed in pink wispy skirts, clutching a wooden bar set up in the middle of the room, my sister, looking skinny and awkward, among them. The pink girls were doing strange contortions and complicated exercises. My mother said Madeleine was the best. I didn’t see any difference. I was squirming with boredom at the edge of a bench, sharing the only sitting space in the room with half a dozen mothers, their eyes riveted on their rosy angels, mine glazing over.
Madame Seda. Only a little taller than the Boss, black hair tied in a bun, and wearing a blood-red skirt, she gave orders to the angels. “Tendu rond de jambe dégagé!” I kept thinking, “Gypsy. She’s a Gypsy, and doing Gypsy talk.”
As the class progressed, I would fidget and diabolically make irritating little noises. Clicks, fart sounds, burps. Adjacent to the bench was a box that held rosin nuggets, hardened crystals of pine sap. I saw gold, gold that I could crunch under my foot, making gold dust and delicious sounds of cracks and crackles.
“All right, little brother, if you’ve got so much energy, get up and do these jumps.” Madame Seda crooked a finger at me. “Hurry up now. Up! See if you can jump as high as the girls.”
Ah, a challenge. A test from the Gypsy. A willing marionette, I jerked to my feet and moved to the center of the room.
“You have to start in fifth position, right foot in front.” She propped me, my knees to the side, right heel against left big toe.
“Now leap in the air and change your feet so when you land, your left foot is in front.” I hurled myself into the air, legs akimbo, made the switch, and somehow managed to land on my feet.
“Oh, you did it! Good. That’s called a changement. Now do thirty-two of them, without a stop!”
Ah, the test gets tougher. All those girls, a benchful of mothers, and the Boss watching. Yikes, thirty-two! I bounded, uncontrolled like a pogo stick, frantically switching feet thirty-two times … flying …
Madame Seda’s eyes danced like anthracite coals, “Oh, that was wonderful! Wasn’t it, girls?” and leading them in doubtful and reluctant applause. “I’ve never seen any boy jump as high as you. Next week, if you are quiet during class, I’ll let you join the girls for the changements.” She added a Gypsy threat: “Better practice till then.”
I must have done 100,000 changements in my living room over the next seven days. My mother and sister corrected my form, my brothers got out of the house as quickly as they could, and my father struggled to read the paper, smoking his cigar and trying to ignore it all. The next Saturday, on the walk up to 181st Street, I did changements on every street crossing. Even Boss grew impatient. “Enough now. Enough. We’ll never get there.”
Back on the bench, I sat unmoving, inwardly racehorse ready. Then it came. “All right, everyone, thirty-two changements. We’re waiting for you, Jacques.” I was up and in fifth position, ready to go before she blinked, and after the thirty-two with the girls, another thirty-two—solo. I didn’t volunteer to do the extra.
“Do it again while you’re tired, and jump even higher.” Clever Gypsy manipulator.
“Fantastic! Dear Jacques, wonderful!” She gave me a big hug. Seductive Gypsy. Then the bait: “But … after you come down from those enormous leaps, you’ve got to learn how to land. You must take the beginning of class. That’s where we learn the pliés [graceful knee bends] that teach you how to alight from a jump without making a sound.”
Another week and 100,000 pliés later, outfitted in black tights and white T-shirt, I stood next to my sister and did the beginning of class at the barre, endured the middle sitting quietly on the bench, and joined the girls for the changements at the end.
A few weeks later, Seda closed the trap.
“You jump so high, and you are landing so beautifully using the plié, but you look awful in the air, flailing your arms about. You’ve got to take all of class and learn how to do port des bras and épaulement