First Love
By East of the Sun
Meg Giry wants to tell you a story….
I've been dancing since I could walk. Mamman used to show me the steps her girls in the corps would dance before she broke her ankle. Before we could afford a doctor. She'd always bound her girls' breaks before, so she knew how to bind her own. This, though, was a particularly nasty break and it never quite healed correctly. By the time she took the home-made brace off, she couldn't even walk without the use of a cane, much less dance. But still she instructed classes at l'Opera and me, from her chair in our apartments until I was finally old enough to join the corps de ballet.
I was good, of that there could be no doubt. Who wouldn't be with an instructor's training for their entire lifetime? But that also meant that I had to be the best. Mamman was a strict ballet mistress to begin with, and she knew I should excel. She was always disappointed in me if I wasn't better than my peers. I worked until I thought my legs wouldn't hold me any longer, and then I worked harder. Weakness would not be tolerated. I barely even had time to go out for tea with the rest of my class after a lesson. In fact, I didn't know many of the girls' names. The only girl I knew well was Sorelli, a girl in the level above me. She stayed in the practice room almost as much as I did. Occasionally we would warm up together or she would help me perfect a position or step. Once after a particularly long and grueling evening, she even invited me to her rooms for a cup of tea. Over the years Sorelli and I had created some semblance of a friendship between us.
Being a year above me meant that Sorelli also got her pointe shoes a year before me. I was insanely jealous of those silken pink shoes and despised my own soft gray leather ones for it. It was a tradition in l'Opera that when a dancer got her pointe shoes, she cut the ties off of her soft shoes and wore them around her wrist and pin them inside her costumes for luck. The story behind that was for the dancers to remember what they have learned, but once my friend had gotten hers, I realized that it was really a silent reminder to the younger girls that they were inferior to their elders. I cried many nights after Sorelli got her shoes, and I ignored her as best I could during our long hours of practice together in the small practice room. I thought I would suffocate or explode from spending so much time with her, but I never did. A year later I got my own shiny pair of silken pointe shoes.
The sewing scissors quivered in my hands when I went to cut the ties off of my soft shoes. No matter how much I hated them, they had been my constant companions as I learned my way through the exact art of ballet. Mamman's hand steadied mine as she smiled at me for the first time in many years. "You're fine," She had said to me. "You've earned this. It's time to let go." And the scissors in my hand swooped down smoothly and sliced through the battered cords. I smiled at the ties in my hand and turned to Mamman to ask her to bind them around my wrist. She smiled wider and told me that it would be an honor. I decided that the best way to brag about my pointe shoes to Sorelli would be to say nothing at all about them. I would let her notice them and then just smile at her and she would ask for every detail about the test and how I did and how nervous I was…. And she did.
About a month after I got my pointe shoes I decided that they weren't worth all the tears and jealousy. They hurt. My toes were bloody and calloused and I was in almost constant pain. I could bear it, though, because I had a new friend. Christine Daae joined the corps de ballet. Mamman had taken the girl, who was a few months older than I, under her wing. Christine had little dance experience, but she was very talented for someone who didn't have it in their blood. Mamman, Sorelli and I worked almost constantly to teach Christine all that was expected of a dancer of her age. Within a year Christine got her pointe shoes as well. The two of us spent much time together. It seemed she was shy. I made up for her shyness by having enough personality for the both of us. I still worked hard to maintain my new position as leader of the row, but now Christine joined Sorelli and I in our long hours in the lesson room to make up for her late start in ballet. We were a merry little trio, taking tea in Sorelli's dressing room after every practice and laughing happily at jokes or gossiping about older dancers because we envied them or about younger girls, predicting if they would pass or fail their examinations. Christine and Sorelli were never really great friends, but there was an amiable feeling between the two and they enjoyed each other's company.
We were in the practice room late and Sorelli was sick the night I found out Christine could sing. I was practicing our dance from the opera and Christine was resting on a stool when she started to hum the song. "Can you sing it, Christine?" I asked hopefully, "It would help me get the counts right." She agreed and I took the beginning position, but when she started singing, I stiffened rather than began the fluid movements. "What is it?" She asked me nervously, "Am I really that bad?" I answered that she didn't belong in the ballet, but she needed to try out for a singing role when they began auditions for the next opera. She laughed nervously and changed the subject quickly.
A year later, thanks to me, she did get a part in the opera, but disappeared the same night after telling me she had been hearing voices, or, more accurately, a voice. I began to wonder if I had judged her sanity correctly. She had always been imaginative and a dreamer, bordering on slightly crazy, but never crossing the line. I wondered if she had run away or gotten lost, but the most likely thought of all was grim: that she had been taken by the man whose voice she heard. I felt guilty, why hadn't I noticed her acting stranger than usual? In all the long conversations we'd had, did she ever mention a voice and I had thought it nothing? My worries turned out to be for nothing, she returned after a few weeks, tired, but none the worse for her disappearance. In fact, it seemed she sang even better than before, if possible. During her absence, I lost another friend. Sorelli left l'Opera. She had taken me aside after announcing her departure to the corps and explained to me that she was to become a wealthy man's escort and mistress. He had offered her a nice apartment and a salary more than she would make here dancing. I embraced her warmly and told her I wished only the best for her and that I hoped she would invite me over for tea once in a while. She smiled and made a promise of it. Since Sorelli had left, Mamman was forced to make me the lead dancer in the next opera. I all but slept in the lesson room after she told me.
It's been worked out by our less-than-brilliant managers and Christine's would-be suitor that she was kidnapped by the Phantom of the Opera, a figment of everyone's imaginations. The fire that is the legend has been fueled on more than one occasion by my screams and outbursts of his presence. It seems the managers have been sent notes several times that complain about their way of running things and suggest different ways to do them. I know many people who would do this, but everyone is convinced that a specter is writing notes and criticizing the managers. I think their feathers are just ruffled by the fact that they aren't universally worshipped, but that's just my opinion.
It appears that the said less-than-brilliant managers and would-be suitor were right for once. Or partially right. There was a man who lived under l'Opera and trained Christine to sing. I've lost another friend, Christine left after she was taken for a second time by the Ghost. There has been no sign of this Ghost, but there will never be doubt of his existence. I know that for a year or so he will be the subject of every conversation in this building. Until these people in our little city of l'Opera find other things to discuss, I will retreat to my lesson room and dance, as I have always done. Dancing, as it would seem, is my first love.