Page 4 of Our Strange Duet

Her dark hair was pulled back in its usual braided chignon. Her expression was thunderous.

“What a rehearsal! I’ve never seen such careless pas de bourrées, such dismal sissones. Meg Giry, you were a full count behind on the final garden combination. Truly a disgrace! I should make you all return to the stage and run through it again until it’s perfect!”

The room froze, waiting with bated breath to see if her threat would actually be carried out. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

The corner of her lips twisted into a frown of displeasure. “Fortunately for you, Silvio has already gone home.”

Meg let out a soft hiss of relief.

“But I expect each of you warmed up in the practice hall one hour before morning rehearsal so that we can work through the adagio.” Madame Giry’s voice—perpetually raised to be heard over the clunk of Silvio’s practice piano—always sounded hoarse, as if she were on the cusp of a cold. Tonight, it all but cracked. Even she, it seemed, had been worn out by the long rehearsal.

With a sharp turn, she left, and moments later, we could hear her through the thin walls, berating the male dancers with added fury.

“I wasn’t that far behind, was I?” Meg asked, tying the sash of her robe. She backed up and prepared to mark through the steps barefoot. She began the plié, then faltered. “I need the music. I can hardly hear myself think in all this madness.”

The dressing room had begun to empty as girls hurried out to enjoy what remained of the night, but the chatter was still loud enough to set my teeth on edge.

In the far corner, Lisette Sartienne was holding court with some of the newer members of the corps. Last month, she’d been assigned a soloist role in one of the ballet’s workshops, and now the rest of the dancers treated her as if she’d been coated in gold dust.

She held up one hat, then another, watching her reflection with a critical eye as the other girls fawned.

“Count me in, Christine. Marguerite’s ‘Jewel Song’?” Meg asked, drawing my attention.

I noticed the way her brow had pinched, concern gnawing at her expression. For as much as she loved to play the role of blithe coquette, no one in the corps took their dancing as seriously as Meg. She would absolutely spend a carefree night at Le Chat Noir, flirting with anything that moved over endless coupes of champagne—but she’d be at the barre for a solid hour after, her eyes fixed on the mirror, making sure every line of her body was angled to perfection.

I gave her the four bars in question, humming the score as I took off my own wig. A mess of dark curls spilled free, and I finger-combed through them while watching Meg’s reflection.

She dipped and twirled, her usually fluid, sweeping movements stifled by the confines of the cramped space.

When the tempo changed, ceding to the opening notes of Marguerite’s aria, I switched too, lightly singing the first lyrics.

“Ah! Je ris de me voir. Si belle en ce miroir. Ah! Je ris de me voir. Si belle en ce miroir.”

I lost myself in the melody, letting the French words roll over my tongue as fluently as my native Swedish.

I’d always had a knack for languages. As the daughter of an itinerant violinist who had played in whatever café orchestra was willing to pay, I’d spent my early childhood traveling through Europe, picking up Italian and Spanish, English and German. And, of course, French. Father had firmly believed that no place on earth celebrated music more ardently than France.

At heart, I was not a dancer. Not truly. Not like Meg. Though I’d spent my adolescence in studios, mastering the rigid positions and repetitive movements that ballet demands, I often confused échappés with entrechats. Madame Giry’s walking stick was forever nudging my feet into more extreme angles while I flexed and stretched at the barre.

But I knew little else.

When my father had died four years ago, wasting away within a fortnight after a doctor’s grim prognosis, and I found myself a sixteen-year-old orphan, I’d needed something to save me.

Blessedly, Father had died in Paris.

He’d been good friends with Madame Giry’s husband, and I’d known her well enough that, when she’d approached me after the funeral, asking what I intended to do with myself, I answered her as honestly as I could: by bursting into bewildered tears.

She’d cleaned me up and taken me in, letting me stay with her family and share a room with her daughter, Meg. After a week of me and my grief hopelessly underfoot wherever I went in the crowded apartment, she enrolled me at the Conservatoire de Paris, where she was an instructor. As she took me to my first class, she’d wondered aloud if any of my father’s musical gifts might have worn off on me.

They had.

I could stay in tempo and had an innate understanding of the way my body was meant to move with a melody. While I would never be a prima ballerina, I wouldn’t embarrass myself—or Madame Giry—swinging a bower of roses along with the opera’s corps de ballet.

But secretly, in the deepest recesses of my heart, I wanted to be a singer.

I knew I could never swan about the stage, commanding an audience’s attention with the same swagger as Carlotta, but I loved to hear my voice blend with other instruments, tangling and entwining to create music twice as lovely.

When Father had been between jobs, we’d visit street markets to earn our supper. He’d leave his case open to catch coins from passersby as he played popular tunes that I could sing along to, drawing a crowd as my tiny voice rose above his racing runs. I knew my tone was clear and sweet, and Father often praised my vocal range, but we traveled too much for formal training. I’d never found a true instructor, and so my secret dream stayed nothing more than that: a secret.