Reserved for the Cat (7 page)

When she arrived at the table, there were only three other girls here. One of them was a dark-haired, studious-looking girl with very short hair and gold-rimmed spectacles. Madame was not in evidence, but luncheon was. Tea, bread and butter, currant jam, cucumber sandwiches. Clearly there was only one sandwich apiece, but as much bread and butter as a girl would want. The two who were sitting together, still wearing shop-girls’ aprons, gave Ninette a friendly nod, but did not stop their gossip, which was entirely in French. They must have known she could understand them, but since it was inconsequential stuff about other girls in the shop, she ignored them. The dark-haired one was engrossed in a book that did not look at all like a novel; that left Ninette alone with her meal. This, she did not at all mind. Plain as it might be, she savored it, at the same time trying not to let on she was very nearly in transports of joy over the fact that she was eating real butter and a piece of fresh bread she had herself just cut from the loaf, and not salted lard or the grease carefully saved from cooking scraped thin over the top of old, stale bread sold cheap at the corner bakery.

The two girls together—Marie and Jeanne—ate quickly and were as quickly gone; likely their time for luncheon was very short, and allowed only because the English tended to scant luncheon and eat a large tea, which meant they would be there to serve customers at an hour when the other girls would be gone. The bookish girl ate slowly, absently, and methodically, as if she were a steam engine and food was only fuel. Ninette was done before she was, took her plates to the serving hatch as the others had, and left them there.

Then, because she was supposed to be going back to this nonexistent sister, she went out again. The cat went with her, of course. She felt far less conspicuous in her “new” clothing; she no longer looked like the scullery maid, but as if she belonged on this street. Frankly, she had to wonder if Madame would have turned her away if she had spoken English instead of French.

But perhaps the gold sovereign had done the speaking for her.

For some time, she just followed where the cat led. Finally he turned around and looked at her over his shoulder.
Where do you want to go?
he asked, sounding a bit baffled.

She thought about that. It wasn’t raining, so there was no reason to seek shelter inside a shop or some public building. Finally, after making sure there was no one near enough to hear her talking to a cat, she replied. “Actually, just somewhere we can talk. I want to know just what you plan. I know you are planning
something,
but I can’t keep living at that house, pretending to visit a sister that does not exist. And are you going to keep stealing purses?”

She stopped then, because someone opened the shop door just behind her. The cat flicked his tail and moved off.

Follow me,
was all he said, and so she did.

He led her to a pretty little park, where there were young mothers with toddlers and babies in prams. That is, she assumed that the women were the children’s actual mothers. This neighborhood did not look as if the people living here could afford nursemaids for their children. Like Madame, they probably had a cook and a maid-of-all-work, but looked after their children themselves.

The
grisettes
of Bohemia and the Left Bank, of Montmartre and garret or basement flats did not have servants at all, and were unburdened with children. Or if they had children, they were left at the door of an orphanage, or the
grisette
abandoned her Bohemian life to find some way to keep them.

Little ballet girls did not have children either. But that was because, illegal as it was, there were still ways to be rid of a child before it interfered with one’s dancing.

Perhaps that was why the artists had all made a pet of her. She was a rare thing in their lives. They would probably have made even more of a pet of her if she had ever been able to sit still long enough for them to paint her.

The cat found her a relatively secluded bench. There he sat down at her feet—on her feet, actually, and regarded the pigeons with a meditative expression.

I intend to make you an
etoile, he said.
Here. In the music halls. It will not be like the ballet; they are more like the Follies
.

“I should not mind that at all,” she said instantly. “But I don’t see how you are to do that. If they have a steady chorus of dancers, I might rise to be the soloist, but I would never be an
etoile.
In a place like that, one must have an act, costumes, even scenery sometimes. I have one pair of shoes and one rehearsal costume. And no act.”

Or,
he replied,
one must have a Name. A Reputation.

She rolled her eyes. “Which I also do not have. As I was told many times, one good review in
La Figaro
does not a reputation make.”

I did not say we would use
your
name.

She stared down at him, but he did not meet her eyes. His were fixed on the pigeons. “Whose name, precisely, did you intend to use? And how do you expect me to get away with this impersonation?”

How far from their companies do most dancers ever travel?
He countered with a question.
Ballet dancers, I mean, and not the sort that have no company, like Isadora and Loie Fuller. You do not want that sort of life. You will need a setting; a theater where you are the resident
etoile
. Not your own theater, having one’s own theater is foolishness and a waste of money. You need an impresario who will set productions around you, so that you are the
etoile
of that company. And—more than just ordinary dancers, how many
etoiles
ever travel?

“None at all, really,” she replied after a moment. “Unless the company goes on tour. But that is very expensive to mount, and unless the Company has a sensational reputation, like Ballet Russe, it is really folly to go on tour. And the
etoiles
are almost never allowed to dance for other companies.”

So, we will borrow the name of someone unlikely to ever hear about your impersonation,
the cat said calmly.

“So I am to walk up to an impresario, and without any way of proving it, nor worldly goods to back my claim, tell him I am a great
etoile
from some far away place and expect him to believe me!” She laughed. “You are a very clever cat, but you have a woeful understanding of humans.”

I have a rather better idea than that,
the cat replied.
But for now, I should like you to go to the Imperial and see what it is you are going to be joining.

Once again, the cat led the way. It was not a long walk, as Ninette was used to. The Imperial Music Hall was right on the seaside, and it offered a “continuous” show of the sort where one could purchase a ticket, walk in at any point, and leave when the act you had first seen came on again. The cat hid himself under her skirt, Ninette purchased the cheapest possible ticket, and both of them ascended to the fourth balcony.

The place was . . . rather fantastic. She was used to the grandness of the theater, but the Paris Opera, though grand, was old, and showing its age a bit. This was new, and opulent. Even the least expensive balcony was lush with velvet and gilding. At this hour, it was mostly empty and she had her choice of seats. Not at all averse to heights—after all she had spent a good many hours of her young life suspended by wires above the stage of the Paris Opera—she took a seat near the middle of the first row and leaned over the railing.

The act at the moment was a
tableaux vivants,
which at the Follies would have consisted of several young ladies clothed in not very much at all posing as a classical painting. Botticelli’s Venus was always a favorite. In this case, however, the
tableaux
consisted of a herd of wretched little children in costume posing as a classical painting. The ones at the back fidgeted. The ones at the front seemed frozen with boredom rather than discipline. The orchestra played, the audience was supposed to note how perfect the imitation was, and then the lights came down, only to come up again on another
tableaux.
Needless to say, none of these were Botticelli’s Venus.

Three of these, and the way was cleared for the next act, performing dogs, with one poor monkey in a jockey uniform.

After that, a young lady in a man’s suit sang a song. The audience seemed to know most of the words and sang along; Ninette got the impression it was called “Champagne Charlie.” She sang two more, then made way for the “ballet.”

This at least was interesting for Ninette, although even the soloist would have been relegated to the front of the
coryphées
at the Paris Opera Ballet. It was definitely true that she could out-dance these girls. The question was if she would be allowed to prove it. And how was she to become an
etoile
in such a place as this? There was no underlying story to these performances, no unifying whole. There was no single principal performer who was brought out again and again to show some new variation on her skill. This was something like the
Moulin Rouge
or the Follies; a variety performance. And yes, Loie Fuller performed at such places and only needed to do her “act” once at each performance, but that was not the sort of thing that Ninette was good at. La Loie had novelty and effect; Ninette had skill and grace and two feet. Nor, did she think, something like the can-can would make an
etoile
of her.

Still, the cat had said to study the acts and the theater, so study them she did.

She spent the rest of the afternoon there in the balcony, watching, studying. This was where she supposed she aspired to be, this stage or one like it.

The only question was, how was she to get there?

You must listen to me and do exactly as I say, with no questions,
the cat said from his place under her skirt, curled warmly around her ankles.
Have I not brought you this far? It will be hard, it will take all your wits, and the beginning of it, at least, will be very uncomfortable for you. Can you do that?

“I don’t see that I have a choice,” she whispered under cover of the orchestra playing.

“I don’t know how to be a shop-girl. And someone would find out that I don’t belong here.” She thought a moment, and firmed her chin, stubbornly. “And besides, I want to be an
etoile.
I want to be made much of. I want my own dressing room, and flowers and champagne and chocolates in it. I want young men to send me flowers and old men to send me jewelry. I want a dresser and an apartment and a maid. I want to find a wealthy man who will—”

Then listen to me and you will have all those things,
the cat said, interrupting her.
Now, study this place. A hall like this will soon be the place of your triumph; study it, study the acts, and above all, study the audience. It is, after all, they you must win.

F
OR the next four days, Ninette and the cat went out in the morning and returned in the evening. Every moment of those days she spent studying the music hall; on the whole she was rather glad that she was doing that, for the cat was correct, it seemed to rain at least part of the day, every day. First, she watched the acts and as much of the action behind scenes as she could see from the front of the house, and then, by cunningly pretending to have been sent to deliver things, or otherwise slipping in backstage, she studied the acts, and the way that things were run, from backstage. It wasn’t hard; she knew where to go and how not to be noticed backstage in almost any theater. She would bustle about, head down, carrying a bundle of cloth from one place to another. Everyone assumed she was someone else’s dresser. She would sit in a corner and pretend to sew; everyone assumed she was someone else’s costume girl. The one thing that would have made even these pretenses difficult at the Ballet, where everyone knew everyone else and what their business was, made it easy here. No one really knew anything much about any of the other acts. They rotated among the houses, making the music hall circuit, never spending more than a week at any one place. Half the people here were going on together, into London to make the rounds of several music halls called one “Empire” or another, which were all owned by the same man. But the rest were scattering to the four winds, every direction but East. All but the girl who sang “Champagne Charlie”; she was going on to something called the “Panto” as a “Principal Boy,” whatever that was.

Things were run in a very different fashion in this place, where the acts never remained for more than two weeks. The orchestra had to learn new music with each new act; the acts had to rehearse on a new stage with new stagehands every time they migrated to a new booking. It was, Ninette thought, distinctly inferior to what she was used to—a setting where the performances changed, but the players, the supporting members, and the orchestra remained the same. It was even distinctly different from the music halls of Paris, where there was a resident company of dancers who performed pieces that framed the performances of artists who would remain for long bookings, six weeks to even a year or more. The orchestra had no feeling of loyalty to the performers; after all, they would be gone in a week. As a consequence, they also had no particular interest in supporting them past the absolute minimum required. The first morning rehearsals, known as “band calls,” could be terrible things, taking far longer than they needed to. Performers supplied their own sheet music, and this was often a cause for acrimony, as the performers were not inclined to buy new music until they absolutely had to, which meant musicians were often forced to deal with music that was just barely readable. And when the performer was not in their favor, well. . . .