After the orientation held at the newly opened theater, Gina Grinnell's life as a member of the dance company officially began. She put on her new leotard and stepped into the rehearsal room for her first class.
It wasn't expensive, but it was a gift Helen had bought her to celebrate her joining the company. Of course, she also remembered to send Liz in Lausanne a letter with the wonderful news.
On the first day, as ballet barres were set up for warm-ups, members began filing into the rehearsal room.
She exchanged a slight nod with Lori, who arrived late, and soon a middle-aged woman who looked like one of the instructors opened the door and entered. So that man doesn't teach the classes himself. She hadn't expected him to, but it was still a little surprising.
Good grief, clothes really do make the person. Standing in the rehearsal room in a leotard, she felt as if she had become a professional dancer. Without realizing it, she seemed to straighten her neck and lift her chin.
The ballet teacher greeted the gathered members briefly, then clapped to announce the warm-up. The accompanist seated at the piano immediately began to play.
The warm-up that started each day was always ballet, and the dance company's curriculum included three or four hours of ballet lessons each week, but the schedule here was far denser and more varied than she had expected.
Two or three times a week, they had Latin, folk dance, and jazz classes. Once a week there was acrobatics, and occasionally they were taught court dance, mime, and other disciplines.
The people most thrown by Eugene Han's curriculum were the young members who had done nothing but ballet their entire lives. Every one of them struggled to adapt to the highly improvisational rhythms of Latin, jazz, and minority ethnic dances.
Gina, on the other hand, had a miserable time in ballet, the discipline she had given up on early, but in the other classes she flew like a bird suddenly sprouting wings. Irregularity and improvisation had always been Liz's specialties.
And since Liz's dancing was the very expression of her identity and consciousness, Gina could give her all for all but a few hours of each day.
Could a life really exist in which she could live by doing nothing but dance? Even as she lived the life she had been given, she often couldn't believe that she was truly living it.
If not for Liz's advice not to hesitate at adventure, she would still be content inside the well of East Lausanne.
It wasn't that her old life had been bad, but day by day she was melting into a sense of fulfillment she had never felt before.
“What a mess. You'd be perfect for a street acrobat troupe.”
“Hey, I think I've seen someone exactly like that before.”
“Who? A monkey?”
Of course, even while living a fulfilling life, moments like this were bound to follow. It happened during acrobatics class, when she lightly completed an aerial backflip and turned around. She had been the only woman to pull it off and had received a round of applause, but while waiting for her next turn, she heard the voices.
She silently turned toward the source of the sound and found the man and woman who openly whispered about her even at other times, irritating her to no end, laughing together.
The insult had no stated subject, but she had heard every syllable. She tilted her head and glared sideways at them.
“Don't worry about it. Keep going, Gina.”
She was summoning all her patience because she didn't want to cause a scene when she felt a light touch at the small of her back. She turned at the sign of someone's presence and saw Lori swiftly pass her and perform an aerial flip.
After finishing it just as cleanly as expected, Lori returned to her place, flashed Gina a wide grin, and went back to her spot. Looking at that face, Gina felt her sour mood dissolve at once.
Since coming here, Lori had shown outstanding skill in every class, living up to the title of top student. Lori danced as if they could make any rhythm part of their body. Their ability to move between regular and irregular rhythms was astonishing.
Especially when she watched Lori move during ballet, Gina felt so ashamed of her past self, who had dismissed it as merely boring.
She wanted to get better, like Lori. It was an unfamiliar feeling, since there had been no one to inspire it in Lausanne. Lori had become the source and driving force behind her growing motivation.
At lunchtime, Lori and Gina collected sandwiches, cold cuts, and stewed fruit from the cafeteria, then went out to the lawn that had been laid out beyond the building. The other members had already begun claiming spots on the grass and benches, one by one, and eating lunch.
As they sat in the middle of the lawn and began to eat, she suddenly remembered the afternoon's remaining schedule, and the back of her neck went cold.
“Lori, ballet's the last class today, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Ugh, I hate it. Ballet's so hard.”
“You're getting better, little by little.”
“I know you're just saying that. I should've done more when I was younger.”
“I'm not just saying it. Everyone does the same exercises, but you have your own style.”
“Really. You might even become better than me someday.”
“Oh, come on.” Gina burst out laughing at Lori's final addition. There were limits to empty flattery if they expected her to take it seriously.
When Lori looked at her in disbelief and asked why she couldn't believe it, Gina waved them off and told them to finish their lunch. Then she sensed someone walking close by and stopping beside them. She and Lori turned in the same direction.
“Hey, Lori. You already got yourself a girlfriend?”
“Get lost, Peter.”
“What kind of attitude is that? No wonder girls don't like you.”
“I don't care, so mind your own business.”
“You two look good together.”
It was Peter, the one who had kept her on edge throughout class. She gave him the barest glance, not wanting to deal with him as he walked away laughing and joking with his friends. Even Lori, who was exceptionally considerate toward others, wore a cold expression whenever Peter was around.
But anyone with eyes and a sense of judgment could tell that the source of that attitude was an inferiority complex. From what Lori had told her, Peter had grown up in a strict high-class family, and he and Lori had shared the same ballet teacher during their middle and high school years.
Liz used to say that people who couldn't love themselves were the most pitiful of all. Remembering her words again, Gina no longer knew whether she should hate Peter or pity him.
“Do your best.”
After lunch, they returned to the rehearsal room. Lori said that with their characteristic smile, then went to their place.
It was the seventh day since Gina had joined the dance company—the final ballet class of the week.
She stood holding the barre set up for class and waited for the teacher when the door opened and someone entered. It was Eugene Han, that man.
When their eyes met as if by some impossible coincidence, she felt prickles rise all over her body. He was dressed as a gentleman in a frock coat that fell to his knees, carrying a cane decorated with leather and metal.
His arrival changed even the air among the murmuring members. A gentleman? No—he looked like a lion, even more imposing than he had at the audition.
As soon as he entered, he surveyed the room with his hands clasped behind his back, then gave the accompanist seated at the piano a look.
And so the class began without a single word from him. He must be planning to evaluate the results of their week of practice. There was no other explanation.
But of all the classes, why did it have to be ballet, the one she was least confident in? Feeling as if flesh were being gnawed from her bones, she swallowed dryly.
Crash! They had been working through the ballet basics for some time when a loud noise rang out. She looked back to see the expensive cane Eugene Han had been carrying—one that clearly looked heavy enough to weigh dozens of pounds—rolling across the floor.
He had thrown it. The accompanist's playing gradually faded, and his quiet mutter rang clearly throughout the room.
“Unbearable. I can't watch this with my eyes open.”
The room was packed with heat from everyone's movement, and the dancers were breathing hard, their breath catching at the tips of their chins. Yet no one could even breathe freely where he could hear them.
“Ballet is a fundamental basic, members. I thought I'd gathered only prodigies, but was I mistaken?”
“I don't know what you've learned this past week. Clear away the barres. We'll start center.”
The man spoke with a face far more irritable than the one he had worn at the audition, then rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache.
Center meant performing the full sequence in the middle of the floor without the ballet barres used for warm-ups, and everyone moved at his command, beginning to push the barres lining the rehearsal room into a corner.
“Gina Grinnell.”
She moved along with everyone else and was about to step onto the floor when her name was suddenly called, making her jump as if she had been singled out.
“Yes?”
“Go to the back. Don't leave the barre.”
Ever since he had entered, she had been so tense that her heart began pounding like mad. She understood what he meant. Barre work was the most basic of basics required before moving to center.
Telling her not even to come onto the floor at this point meant he had judged her incapable of doing even that.
Desperate and humiliated, she left the group of gathered members. She forced herself to grip the barre alone, feeling much as she had during the audition, when she heard a breathy laugh from somewhere.
It was Peter. That bastard really had no sense of time or place. Her face was already burning, and now the added humiliation made her seethe, when Eugene Han strolled over and stopped in front of him.
She watched the smile vanish rapidly from Peter's face.
“What is your name?”
“Peter, sir. Peter Green.”
“Mr. Green, I'd like to ask why you were laughing just now.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Then you might as well show us what you can do.”
“What?”
Eugene immediately gave the accompanist at the piano a look, and the music began. Everyone except Peter, who had been abruptly forced into a solo, stepped several paces back.
Peter began to move. He wasn't incompetent—he had been selected to join the company—but even so, it was clear that dancing in front of the man kept him from shaking all the tension out of his body.
“Terribly sluggish, Mr. Green.”
“…I'm sorry.”
“After dancing this wretchedly all this time, I suppose you've been told you have talent.”
When Peter finished, the man spat out his criticism as if there were nothing more to consider. In an instant, Peter's face turned red all the way to his earlobes.
Having heard about Peter's background from Lori, Gina could imagine how deeply those words had struck at his inferiority and shame. Eugene Han clasped his hands behind his back again, slowly paced among the dancers on the floor, and began to speak.
“I don't believe in the word talent, dancers.”
“Talent, potential—those words are like illusions. I think they're a kind of deception, something that blinds people.”
At that moment, Eugene Han's gaze landed precisely on Gina, gripping the ballet barre at the edge of the rehearsal room.
“Don't be fooled by that kind of wordplay. Look at reality. You are my dancers now, not half-baked students anymore.”
“The process doesn't matter. I believe only in what I see before me. No matter what it takes, even if yesterday was dreadful, you show me your best today.”
“That is what I call talent.”
After his speech, center practice began again. Eugene Han slowly wove among the members as they practiced.
Even then, the man didn't spare her so much as a single glance, but she quietly continued her barre exercises alone until the very end.
When practice ended, the man left first. Then she saw Peter leave the rehearsal room second, gathering his belongings with a furious expression. It felt strangely close to home, and she was sighing when she saw Lori walking toward her from across the room.
“Gina.”
“Lori, you go on ahead today.”
“You weren't that bad today. I don't know why Mr. Han acted like that.”
“Thanks, but you don't have to say that just to make me feel better. See you tomorrow, Lori.”
It wasn't like that. Really. She could read every word written across kindhearted Lori's face. Lori would probably never know what it felt like to be in this position.
After sending Lori off, Gina waited until the other members had gathered their things and left. Only after practicing the center movements she hadn't been able to do, alone in the empty rehearsal room, did she finally leave.
“Slow even when you're finishing up. Why are you the last one out?”
A voice in the hallway, arriving without warning, nearly made her heart stop. It was that man. Without paying any attention to her startled reaction, he continued speaking.
“Stay in the rehearsal room at this time tomorrow.”
“What?”
“I said stay after class.”
“Why?”
His command held neither mercy nor flexibility, and the events in front of everyone just a few hours earlier made anger surge in her chest. Without waiting to hear her answer, the man turned to leave, and she abruptly called after the back of his head.
The man's pitch-black eyes turned back toward her. So this was what she would look like if someone saw her. It felt a little strange, seeing him this close and in such bright light for the first time.
“Before you ask that, it would be easier if you reflected on your performance today.”
“It would be faster to explain it with an animal.”
But she had no time to reflect on the feelings his familiar features stirred in her; all that came from his lips were thorns. The man let out a small breath as if incredulous, shook his head several times, and turned away again without hesitation.
Standing alone in the hallway and glaring at the man's broad back for no good reason, Gina flung open the rehearsal room door once more. If she could someday knock that high nose down a peg, practicing until midnight would be no trouble at all.