There was a cellist, Jean-Pierre or Jean-Claude, Félicie could never recall, who stayed late to practice every week. Sometimes he stayed behind in the pit orchestra while his fellows left but most often, he found an empty room and sat by one of the many-paned windows, the cello cradled between his legs, and drew his bow across the string, loosing music like arrows into the fading light. Phrases and bars might float out from behind the door any day of the week, almost as if the Opéra house itself was singing. Félicie hardly noticed. During the day, she was occupied with her classes and the few minutes that could be borrowed to chat with Nora or Camille and at night, she was too tired to wonder at the odd lullaby. There were times when she heard Odette humming as she attended to their garret room, as she changed linens, dusted the furniture, set out their evening meal on the little table they'd made from some abandoned crates. If they sometime ate their bread and cheese to the accompaniment of Offenbach or Bizet, it was as usual as when she and Victor had picnicked on the roof of the abbey with murres and kittiwakes. Her mind was most often occupied with Monsieur Mérante's latest choreography, the exact placement of her foot on the barre, the way the cobbled streets felt beneath her feet when she walked to the patisserie to fetch a fresh baguette. And sometimes, the question of whether Victor's eyes were the color of the Seine or the Seine the color of Victor's eyes.
Tonight, she was not wondering that, not even a little. She had missed her dinner with Odette, though her place had still be laid and carefully covered with a cloth before she gobbled it down. She had seen Rudi perform a brisé en avant and she wanted to try it herself, with only the looking-glass to critique her. She dashed the crumbs from her lips and ran down the hall to the empty practice rooms, her skirt fluttering around her, her shoes' ribbons neatly tied. She had expected every door to be closed, unattended. She nearly skidded to stop when it was not so.
Monsieur Mérante stood in the open doorway of the room second from the end. He wore his top-coat, as if he had been on his way out, but his cravat was loosened and his collar slightly open. The light from the room was a very soft gold on his face and Félicie thought she saw what he had looked like when he was a boy. It was as if he was not aware of her at all, transfixed by whatever he watched in the room.
"Monsieur-"
"Quiet," he ordered, his voice matching the word, pitched low. He did not sound angry, she knew that tone, nor even impatient, though there was none of the fondness that had been present over the past few weeks, since her performance as Clara. Since she had seen him take Odette's hand. The hand that had held Odette's now gestured at the door and she moved closer, to see better.
Odette was dancing. Félicie had never seen someone dance the way her teacher did; there was a degree of deliberation in each step that did not look awkward, but only as if there was a way of dancing that only Odette had discovered. Odette moved across the floor, using the broom she had been sweeping with as a prop more than a way to balance, her form fluid and lithe. Her throat was limned with light when she arched her back, her arms held en bas. She conveyed all the precision of dancing en pointe, the startling arrest of a perfect arabesque, her turnout unmarred by her lack of proper slippers, at a pace Félicie had not known was possible. Her lame leg was more a part of her than it had ever seemed, while it was clear Odette must favor it and use all her strength and grace to ensure it seemed essential to her motion, an axis and not an anchor. Her dark hair was coming loose around her face and there was a rich color in her cheeks. The cellist's melody hung in the air. It seemed Odette had always been dancing and always would, that time had unraveled itself around them and only the woman before them could command it. Odette bent at the waist, her fingers grazing the polished floor, and Félicie heard Monsieur Mérante gasp. She reached out her hand to touch his arm and he shook her off, but let his eyes glance away from Odette. Félicie saw he had forgotten she was standing beside him. That there was anyone except for the dark-haired woman in an apron engaged in a variation without parallel. Félicie opened her mouth to speak and he placed a finger against his open lips, then angled his head to indicate she should step away from the door with him.
They could both still see Odette, but the distance seemed enough that they would not disturb her. Félicie opened her mouth again, waiting for a half-second to see if Mérante would stop her, proceeding when he nodded.
"Did you know she could do that?"
"No. I suspected she might, but I didn't know. She never said," he replied.
"What was it? What she was doing. It wasn't ballet," Félicie asked. She had not been able to stop thinking of all the steps and jumps Odette did not do, no grande jeté, no bourée nor pas de chat, but she had not missed them exactly. She had been aware of their absence and how what remained of them was like the memory of a scent, still powerful without the actuality.
"It was magic. It was- it was ballet, the soul of it without the body. It was Odette," Mérante said, trailing off. Félicie had never heard him speak so, not even when he had asked her why she danced. He was telling her why he danced, why he loved ballet, why he was in love, she suddenly knew, desperately, entirely in love with Odette, more now than he could ever have been before she was injured.
"Does she know how you feel?" Félicie said before she could stop herself. She was shocked at asking Mérante such a question—he was always formal and brooked no arguments nor discussion when he directed them, but it was as if another man stood before her. Someone who reminded her of Victor, whose eyes could reflect the sky. He might not answer but he had heard her.
"She must," he said, his brow furrowed, one hand clenched into a fist. He meant it to stop himself—from what? Félicie thought of Odette's face when she slept and when she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, when she sat with her head in her hand, tilted to one side, her hair in a long braid over her shoulder. She thought of how Odette's lips curved when she spoke to Mérante and how she dropped her eyelashes when she spoke of him. Félicie was young but she was not stupid.
"You haven't told her," she said. Announced, really, though with her voice kept low. He still flinched. He had held Odette's hand so gently and had watched her now, rapt.
"You should tell her," she said, more kindly. The cellist had not played a note in a minute, maybe more. She heard the sound of Odette's regular tread, how it worked not to be heavy.
"Now, when she comes, tell the truth," she urged him and then she ran down the hall and into the empty practice room where she flung open the window to catch the scent of the night. Victor might have put on his wings to fly and it was worth looking among the stars. She assumed an attitude en pointe, balancing on the window-sill, and listened to Paris at night and the sound of Odette's choked exclamation, the clatter of the falling broomstick. Mérante's bass confirmation and then the rustling silence of an embrace. She sighed and looked for wings trimmed with copper and tin, the wings of an orphaned angel.