29

DURING MONDAY’S CLASS, ELLEN LEANED AGAINST THE STUDIO wall, thinking of Marek. Thinking of Marek had by then become something of a pastime, and a tension-easer. She replayed and reexamined their conversations, minus the moments of disagreement. She thought about the tab of beard he wore under his lower lip, the warm look of his eyes, his lovely accent, the smooth, inviting feel of his skin. This is the stuff of high school. Too much distraction, she told herself. To no avail.

Pronaszko rose from his chair. “Ellen,” he said, with a suggestion of a bow, “the class is yours to finish.” He smiled, gracious as a prince.

She hopped to her feet, having almost forgotten that she had asked for a half hour to work with the company that day. “Sure!” she said, annoyed at herself for sounding like an eager kid.

The company stirred warily.

“Let’s start one at a time across the floor.” She pointed to the far corner. “Work with the idea of weight, how it pulls your body forward, backward, or sideways.” She waited out Andrzej’s translation, making circles on the floor with her pointed toe, purposely not demonstrating. She wanted to see how inventive they were, what ideas they had about movement. The only instruction she added was, “As you cross the floor, increase your weightedness.”

The dancers slowly began to move, en masse, toward the designated corner, where they wadded themselves together like prisoners trying to avoid notice. Ellen saw in their improvisations a resistance to venturing past the boundaries of their classical training. They approached the task given them without joy or curiosity. It was evident to her that their cooperation rested entirely on Pronaszko’s heavy presence in the room. When he finally stood and called class to an end, both he and the dancers quickly gathered their belongings and left the studio.

Andrzej the translator stayed where he was, posed in what he must have imagined was the perfect Bob Fosse jazz stance. Ellen found this disconcerting, especially since nothing in the flat, pale blueness of his eyes gave her any indication of why he was lingering. She needed the time to work alone, and rifled through her bag for another pair of leg warmers, hoping he’d get the message. Finding them, she sat down.

Andrzej stared at her. “How do you choreograph from that chaos you made with us?” he half whispered, clearly not wanting the few stragglers near the door to see him questioning her.

Ellen, appreciating the delicacy of the moment, bunched her striped blue leg warmers around her ankles and slowly pulled them up. She waited for the other dancers to leave. “I let things get wild so I can get to the outer edge of what I’m going for,” she told him. “Then I shape the movements and layer them with music and words and the set. You know what I mean?”

Eyes on the door, he nodded, but Ellen thought he looked unsure. “This is interesting,” he said, not unkindly. He stole a glance at her in the mirror. “I thought perhaps we could go for a coffee after class tomorrow.”

The invitation was so tentative it was almost endearing. Still, there was a calculated guardedness about him that Ellen did not like or trust.

“Thanks, I’d really like that, but I have plans.” She smiled, anticipating her day in Zokof with Marek. “Actually, I won’t be here tomorrow.”

His eyes widened at the rebuff, then narrowed as he seemed to consider whether to believe her. “Some other time,” he said, his lips flattening into a smile without mirth.

“Definitely.”

He stretched into second position on the floor. “I am curious about the dance you are making for us.”

Ellen closed her dance bag and crossed the floor, hoping he would leave so she could get started. “I’m still working on it.”

He didn’t seem interested in leaving. “Do you choose your principal dancers from the improvisation technique?”

“No, I choose them by the type of movements they do best. When I need those kinds of movements, I put those dancers in.” She knew he was lobbying for a lead part, and she hoped he had the political sense not to ask her.

He shook his head suggestively, letting the angle cut of his hair fly. “You have ideas about how I move best?”

“Not yet,” she said curtly. “Actually, I was planning to work on the piece now.”

It was clear from the momentary tightness in his face that he understood he was being dismissed, but he tried once more. “Maybe I could show you how the movements look on a man.”

She smiled at recognizing this old dancer ploy, that once she saw his interpretation of a movement she would be more inclined to give it to him. She couldn’t resist teasing him. “I always like seeing how a movement looks on a man.”

“So do I,” he said slowly.

She realized this was a confession when he jumped nervously to his feet and muttered a quick good bye.

After the door had closed behind him, Ellen faced the mirror and led herself around with an outstretched arm, like Marek in her dream, holding the rod above his head, beckoning. She began to hum the “For a Girl Tune.”