The Paris Spy (Maggie Hope Mystery #7)(25)
As Sarah changed, Hélo?se snuck a look at her figure. The tall brunette was usually slim, but, since she’d arrived in France, her body had become more rounded. “Ooh la la, your breasts, Sabine! They’re huge!”
Sarah looked down. Her breasts had always been small, too small in her opinion, but they’d grown, she had to admit. And felt tender. “I’m going to get my period,” she replied.
“Do you still get yours?” asked Daphné. “I didn’t think any of us did anymore, not with the rationing.”
As she had been instructed, Sarah left her black dance bag on the bench, and when another dancer, one she’d rarely seen, slipped hers beside it, Sarah picked that one up. The dance bags were identical. The other girl took Sarah’s. The exchange was performed as gracefully as any pas de deux. Sarah lifted the new bag and slung it over her delicate shoulder, the straps biting into her pale skin. Fait accompli, she wished she could say aloud.
—
In the wings, it was dark. Dust motes sparkled in the beams of blue and amber gelled lights. Dancers clustered about a freestanding barre, holding it lightly with one hand, bending forward then arching backward, doing demi-pliés and relevés to warm up. Others were stretched against pieces of the set or moved their weight from foot to foot, burning off excess nerves. A few girls sat on the wooden floor, sewing pink ribbons onto their slippers and darning the satin toe tips for extra traction. An African-looking man, a trombonist from New Orleans whom Sarah knew played jazz with Django Reinhardt at La Cigale, pushed a wide broom. He’d been allowed to keep his job as stage manager at the Opéra when Serge Lifar promised Goebbels and his men that no black man would ever be seen by the audience.
From the other side of the velvet curtain, they could hear the orchestra tuning up, various instruments doing scales, the violins performing a snippet of melody only to stop and repeat.
“I didn’t know Babilee was a Jew,” one coryphée whispered to another as they dipped their feet into the rosin box. “He seems so nice.” Around them, stagehands, burly men in black trousers and chunky black turtlenecks, adjusted lights and double-checked props.
Sarah stood at the barre, her feet in fifth position, the dance bag nearby. She did grand pliés deep and slow with her feet tightly tucked toe to heel—head up, shoulders down, neck long—all the while keeping an eye on the bag.
“All dancers to the stage, please,” came the booming voice of the manager. “All dancers to the stage. Positions for the prologue.”
With the other members of the corps who were ladies-in-waiting, Sarah made her way to the “throne room,” standing still, waiting for the music to begin. This was the one time she had to take her eye off the bag, praying no one would take any notice, no one would look through for a pair of scissors or a skein of thread. Together, she and the other dancers stood in position as members of the royal court for the prologue, the “Entrance of the Fairies.” They waited under the hot lights, staring out into the darkness, for the conductor to give the signal for the triangle to begin.
The Ukrainian Lifar had starred in Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in the twenties. In 1929 he took over the Paris Opéra Ballet as premier danseur and choreographer. The company had been on tour in Spain when the German Army had invaded Paris. When they returned, Lifar was confirmed as ma?tre de ballet by French authorities to prevent German interference with ballet. Somewhere in the theater, Serge Lifar watched.
However, Lifar was rumored to get on well with the German overlords, including ballet aficionado Joseph Goebbels, and no one was quite sure if he was a collaborator or not. Regardless, the dancers, musicians, and everyone at the theater were relieved that the Paris Opéra Ballet was still under French control and they still had jobs. They practiced an ironclad ambiguity in order to survive.
Sarah gazed out across the stalls of the main floor, up to the four rows of balconies, a world of glitter and glamour. She knew Hugh was down below in the orchestra pit with his cello. She found that she danced better knowing he was playing. Hugh Thompson, with the French identity of cellist Hubert Taillier, was her “husband” as part of their disguise. During their SOE training in Scotland and England, they’d fallen in love.
Still, keenly aware of the dance bag left in the wings, Sarah could feel her shoulders inch up and her hands tighten. With the mission of the evening on her mind, she wasn’t dancing her best. She took a deep breath, pushed her shoulders down, and unclenched her hands, trying to listen to the music, to dance, and to forget everything else for the moment.
Finally, Lifar clapped for them to stop. “Are you Arabians or Clydesdales?” he mocked. His jeer echoed through the empty theater.
Sarah thought they were in for a tirade, but he added only “All right, that was better. Rest now. Then get ready. It’s a big night for us.” The ma?tre de ballet relaxed, shifting his weight to one side, a hand placed elegantly on one slim hip. “Merde to all,” he said, the ballet world’s age-old shit for good luck—just like spies—waving them offstage.
As they all trailed offstage, Sarah heard chatty Daphné Gilbert’s unmistakable nasal voice. “You know Hitler blames the sinking of the Titanic on us?” she told Babilee, who’d been watching from the wings, warming up. He was playing Prince Désiré.
He had a towel around his neck, dabbing at the sweat rolling down his face. “Really?”