“Mr. Han, I’ll send in the next candidate.”
“I don’t understand. If all you’re going to do is what you’re told, then why the hell do you dance?”
“…Excuse me?”
“Where’s the wine? Bring me more wine.”
Fucking useless aristocrats. As Eugene scowled and cursed, the teachers sitting beside him were too busy watching his mood.
Ballet had long been the exclusive possession of the upper class, so it was hardly surprising, but he was growing sick of seeing the same, indistinguishable dancing from every candidate who auditioned. With a glass of red wine finally in his hand, Eugene was in an especially twisted mood that day.
That was when the girl entered. Instinctively, Eugene quickly scanned her from head to toe. At first, perhaps because the alcohol was beginning to take effect, he felt an unbearable disgust.
Black hair and black eyes, features just like his own. He had seen people like her a few times as a child. They were the Roma he had encountered in the slums while walking through the city with his father. Seeing them dressed like beggars, kneeling before him and begging, he would return home and suffer nightmares that lasted for days on end.
It felt as though that was his own fate. The discrimination and class divide that could never be overcome had been stark even to a child’s eyes, and he had realized from the earliest days of his childhood that he would forever remain an outsider here.
“My name is Gina Grinnell.”
He frowned at her shabby, disorderly appearance, which did not even meet the most basic standards. Yet her roughly brushed hair, braided and hanging long down her back, and her dark, bright eyes made it impossible for him to look away. Before long, the girl began to dance to the accompanist’s playing.
Her movements were distinctive, carrying traces of Roma dance. There were certainly aspects that set her apart from the previous candidates, but she appeared to lack the polished technique of someone trained as a dancer.
“When did you start dancing?”
“When I was two.”
As usual, the question-and-answer session began, but Eugene couldn’t help laughing when he heard her answer to the first question. He thought she was being awfully boastful just because she had spent some time trailing after the Roma.
The girl said her mother had taught her to dance. The more he watched her, the more he noticed her straight, unwavering voice and strangely relaxed manner.
Despite her clothes, she showed no sign of nervousness, and there was something about her pleasant expression that suggested more lay beneath what she had shown them.
“I’d like to see your build.”
He wasn’t certain he would select her. He was simply curious about how she would react. Contrary to his expectation that she would be flustered, the girl quickly removed every outer garment she was wearing.
Her sun-darkened skin, long, straight limbs, and well-trained muscles stood out. She had a remarkably healthy body. She looked too heavy-built to be a ballerina, but Eugene could judge that if she learned the technique, she had enough ability to handle most of it.
Several of the judges beside him seemed to share his opinion and nodded.
“Where are you from?”
“East Lausanne.”
“I don’t know what gave you the confidence to come all the way here from so far away, but…”
“I’m sorry, but we’re not a troupe of street performers.”
But she still had a long way to go. He meant every word. Someone who came here without an extraordinary amount of resolve wouldn’t even last. The moment he finished speaking, he saw anger gradually rise in the eyes that had seemed so docile.
When the girl revealed her rebellious nature, unable to hide her emotions over so little provocation, Eugene snorted. She looked like she’d be a real pain to control. The thought of having to tame someone like this already gave him a headache.
“I can memorize any movement after seeing it once. I can work hard and do well.”
“Don’t be a zealot.”
“It’s tedious, stuffing things into a talkative person with a clumsy body.”
When the girl refused to back down and tried to stand up to him, Eugene unwittingly went one step further, putting an end to the conversation. Crushing others beneath his feet was his specialty.
Now making no attempt to hide her emotions, the girl openly glared at him for a long moment before snatching up her clothes and turning to leave. Ignoring the judges who were cautiously watching his mood, he lifted his glass and tipped the wine down his throat.
He felt he had worked himself up over something that could bring him no benefit. He had been drawn into it by the high bridge of the black-haired Roma girl’s nose.
That night, after wrapping up the audition results, Eugene headed somewhere. It was the anniversary of his father’s death, and he had visited the grave before making his way to his ancestral home.
The funeral had been held lavishly long ago, but the house still contained countless art books and historical materials left behind by his parents, all of which would be worth an enormous amount to future generations. He had stationed guards there because it would take at least several months to sort everything out.
Though he had forbidden peddlers from entering and prohibited indecent behavior, since there was no way to distinguish every stray vagrant who came around, street musicians sometimes acted as though they would break out in hives if they went even a moment without violating the rules.
“My lord, there’s someone else here again.”
“What are the guards doing instead of handling it?”
“There are several more today.”
He irritably stuck his head out at the knight’s words. Then he saw it clearly even through the darkness: someone was dancing in the middle of the square to the melody of a bandoneon.
When he narrowed his eyes, his gaze stopped on the unmistakable features of the moving figure. It was the girl. Eugene sat there for a long while, unable to tear his eyes away.
When the season came in which mist obscured his vision and cutting wind began to flay his cheeks, he often made snap judgments. He opened the door, got out, and leaned against the car.
He had once read in a book of theory about movements as unadorned as a child’s game, clumsy and childish in appearance yet capable of becoming art in and of themselves.
The heat of intense talent, inspiration impossible to distinguish as sorrow or joy, raced on without end. Why had he thought he knew everything, even while proclaiming that art had no end? Eugene felt a faint shiver travel through his body.
“Helen, thank you so much for letting me stay these past few days.”
“It’s sad to see you go so soon. Come visit from time to time.”
“Of course. I’ll buy something delicious and bring it over once I get paid.”
“You can come anytime, dear. You don’t need an excuse.”
She left Helen’s house with the trunk she had brought from Lausanne. Fortunately, she no longer needed to impose on Helen and stay at her home. She had been accepted into the dance company.
She had completely forgotten how unpleasant the man who seemed to be the director had been. The hall where she had auditioned was breathtakingly magnificent, so imagining how much better the dormitory would be left her thrilled beyond words.
She walked along, checking several times whether the date and time listed in the announcement were correct.
“Wow….”
She had arrived at the opera house she had only ever read about in articles in the Lausanne newspaper. They said it could hold a thousand people, and it was the largest building she had ever seen.
She crept inside and found dancers who looked like the ones she had seen at the audition gathered in small groups. The attendant told her there was still some time before the appointed hour and asked her to wait. She set her trunk on its side in a corner and sat on it.
“Oh!”
She had been passing the dull time when, all at once, a familiar face appeared. It was the boy who had sung at Café Müller.
She wanted to call his name, but then she remembered she had never asked it and didn’t know what it was. When their eyes met, he smiled brightly, came over, and greeted her.
“Hi.”
“Hey, weren’t you the little kid?!”
“Little kid? I’m not. I’m Rory. Rory Lawrence.”
“That’s a cute name, too.”
“What’s yours?”
“Gina Grinnell. So when you said you’d been watching the whole time back then….”
“Yeah, I saw you at the audition. Sorry. I was curious about your dancing.”
He confessed the truth with a smile she couldn’t dislike. Only then did the events of that night begin to make a little more sense. When the man had gone out of his way to mention their company members, he had been referring to both the boy and her.
After talking a little longer, she learned that Rory was the same age as her. He was the first person she had met in either Lausanne or Oxpin who was her age and looked younger than she did.
A little while later, all the gathered company members filed into the grand opera house in a line. Inside the enormous theater, the velvet audience seats were the first thing that caught her eye. On the ceiling was a fresco that looked as though one of the city’s finest painters had spent an immense amount of time completing it.
While everyone who had entered was busy admiring the lavish interior, someone walked across the stage. It was that man.
“Welcome.”
He eventually stopped in the center of the vast stage, then stood silently until the hall quieted before speaking a single weighty word. Only then did she grasp who owned this enormous theater.
Dressed in a three-piece suit, the man appeared even more imposing than he had at the audition.
“The teachers here will work hard, but I intend to make every one of you the best.”
“I expect you to keep up. Especially you, principal Rory Lawrence. I have very high hopes for you.”
His congratulatory speech sounded more like a notification, and she was dumbfounded. But everyone began applauding, so she joined in, and in the midst of it she heard a familiar name. Everyone’s gaze turned in the direction the man was looking.
Without realizing it, she stared to the side with her mouth hanging open. The boy’s face was already flushed to the tips of his ears. Seriously, that guy… Was this what the big city that could steal the shirt off your back was really like? The more she thought about it, the more astonishing the whole situation seemed.
“See you in class.”
For an instant, his gaze met hers. He let a barely perceptible smile flicker across his face, then turned and walked away without another word. The look in his eyes said he intended to exploit them to the fullest as his employees, and she felt that this was only the beginning.