And I tasted the saltiness of tears.
I turned on my tiptoes.
Once.
Twice.
Maybe, if I wished harder, they’d appear.
I closed my eyes tight and my movements became a furious dance.
And for a second, I could almost feel them under my skin, bursting through my back.
Almost.
My invisible wings.
The wings that would take me out of there and make me free.
As they did for my mother.
I wanted freedom so badly.
7
At four years old
I walked into the academy with my grandfather, who had picked me up from day care. He kissed me on the head and left to run some errands. I followed the music to the hall and entered without making noise. My grandmother hated it when I interrupted her classes.
I sat on the floor, back close to the mirror, and watched my mother, smiling.
“Again, Daria,” my grandmother said while my mother moved around her. “Pirouette en dedans, attitude derrière… Pirouette into attitude and arabesque. Don’t bend your knee! Good, développé to écarté devant, attitude derrière… Grand allegro…jeté, jeté and grand jeté.”
When she touched the floor, my mother stumbled forward.
“Sorry,” she quickly excused herself.
“My God, you look like a novice. Concentrate!”
“I’ve been here for hours. I’m tired.”
“Your auditions are around the corner. You can’t let up now,” my grandmother replied severely.
I watched my mother close her eyes and take a sudden, deep breath. I don’t know why, but I wanted to cry. She always seemed so sad, so forlorn, surrounded by a halo of desolation.
My grandmother’s voice echoed off the mirrors, frightening me. She said something in Ukrainian, turned off the music, and hurried out. I didn’t move. I just stared at my mother as she walked over to the window and rested her hands against the glass, staying there a long while, trembling, then rocking back and forth as the thin rays of sun made strange reflections on the floor and lit up her feet.
She stood on her tiptoes. An inaudible beat guided her hands, her arms, and her legs. She turned, jumped in the air, descended with the elegance of a feather. The music was playing inside her, and I couldn’t stop watching her.
My mother was gorgeous. Her hair was blond, her eyes gray, and they always filled with tears when she looked at me. Maybe that was why she didn’t do it that often, preferring to stare at the ground.
I felt a heaviness in my chest. Her emotions reached me, but I didn’t understand them. I did feel them, though. I had never seen her dance that way, and it was beautiful and terrifying.
“Why are you dancing like that, Mom?”
“I’m not dancing, Maya.”
“What are you doing?”
