Then he saw her. He checked the number on her partner’s back against the list. Thirty-four: Nemirovskaya, Anastasia. To him she instantly became Asik. The little ace.
She was mostly leg. Her thighs were as slender as her calves, shades darker than he’d ever seen in still-wintry Magadan May. The ripe, gypsy-brown of her had to be naturaclass="underline" he prohibited the use of tanning sprays in her age group, six to eleven. Her bare back snaked without dragging in the shoulders. She moved as though her pelvis were suspended from the ceiling by an elastic string, weightless and pliable. Despite careless execution, her raw talent was hot.
The music had stopped and he hadn’t noticed. Applause. The other judges scribbled on the scoreboards, and Asik was already pulling her tree trunk of a partner toward the quivering side curtains, where Nata directed the sequin-and-tulled traffic. Away from him.
He decided on the spot to give Asik a good boy and make her a star by next winter’s competition. She’ll be his next Lyuba, he thought. No, she’ll go further. She had the mischievous sparklet that Lyuba — all step counting and obsession — lacked.
* * *
After the competition Roman Ivanovich established himself on a chair outside his office. The eternally cold studio smelled of sweat and hair spray. The girls exited the curtained changing room, their bright dresses hung over their arms in clear-plastic cocoons like discarded butterfly wings. The boys swept the floor with their tuxes. One by one they came up to say good-bye and wish him a good summer. Where was Asik?
The chess boys were cleaning up the postcompetition detritus and bringing the music equipment, lost shoes, tights, pieces of costume, and fake hair from the concert hall. Roman Ivanovich had one more chess match to officiate the following week, and then he would be done for the school year. As in summers past, Nata would be preoccupied with their anemic vegetable patch on the outskirts of town and with redecorating the apartment, which no rearrangement of furniture would make bigger or — against the view of the gray khrushchyovkas from their window — more inspiring.
He noticed a plump woman in a faded fox-collared coat trudging through the studio with a tall girl hooked in her elbow. They stopped by the black curtains of the changing room.
“How much longer? We’re suffocating here,” the woman yelled over the curtains. The girl looked with interest through the open doors of the office, where Nata was organizing a rainbow of rented dresses.
“Leave me alone,” a high voice hollered back. Asik, dressed in jeans and a giant blue flannel shirt, ran out with her costumes — the lime one and a coral number with a balding feather boa for the standard set. She returned them to Nata and started bickering with the woman. Roman Ivanovich hurried up to them.
“Ah, and you must be Anastasia’s mother and sister,” he said and turned to Asik. “Do you go by Nastya?”
“Asya,” Asik said. She looked frightened.
Up close she was snub-nosed and thin-lipped. Her eyes, big chocolate cherries. Her fake eyelashes had half come off, and strands of gelled black hair, released from her bun, stuck out around her head in question marks.
Asik’s mother turned and regarded him. “And you are?”
“This is Roman Ivanovich. Chepurin. As in Chepurin Ballroom Studio and Chess Club?” Asik said.
“Hello,” her sister said. Despite her long coat (vintage by necessity, clearly), he could tell she was well built. Her features were a watered-down version of Asik’s: a straighter nose, smaller eyes with irises the green-brown of weak tea. Classic, honest. Yawny. She lacked her younger sister’s playful slant, which sprang up now in Asik’s eyes, now in the flick of her wrist.
“Congratulations on your daughter’s success.” He’d made sure Asik reached the finals. “She has the kind of talent I haven’t seen here for the last ten years,” Roman Ivanovich added, continuing his customary pitch. Only this time he meant it. “When she joins my junior group in the fall, she’ll be eligible to have a personalized routine choreographed for her during private lessons. I’ll partner her up with a capable boy. With much practice and private coaching, she’s guaranteed to win first place here. Such talent. My wife will sew new costumes for her, order special fabric and rhinestones. Then take her to Moscow, the big races.”
By this point in his pitch, Roman Ivanovich would usually see in the glimmering eyes of even the poorest parents the accounting machinery rebalancing the family budget to accommodate the incubation of their very own star. Asik’s mother appraised him coldly, then looked at Asik, who was pumping up and down, her face a blur of runny makeup and thrill.
“We’ve had enough of this, Ivan Romanovich,” the mother said. Her eyes were bloodshot.
“Roman Ivanovich!” Asik said.
“We hardly get by as it is. I’m raising two girls by myself.”
So the mother was going to play that game. “I understand, of course. But dance is a very important part of a young girl’s education. A real classical education. It’s the Russian tradition. Everybody must learn to dance. Why don’t you dance?” he asked Asik’s sister.
“I took your adult beginner class last year,” she said. “I liked it a lot, but I had to partner with another girl.” She smiled shyly. Perhaps he could get her on his side.
“Inna’s busy with something more useful. She’s a piano student at the arts college,” the mother said. Asik rolled her eyes.
“A talent like this must be nurtured,” Roman Ivanovich addressed the sister. “We have a duty before the art—”
“Is there money involved, in Moscow?” the mother said. “If she could earn something—”
“At top places. Depending on the type of the competition. In the beginning it would be to cover the entry fees, costumes, plane tickets.” He looked from one girl to the other. “If only I had such talented daughters. I’ll even lower the tuition for Asya. Private lessons — half off. It’s a unique opportunity.”
“She’s on the verge of failing several classes at school,” the mother said. “Instead of shaking her half-naked ass around here like it’s some Africa or Brazil, she should be locked up studying.”
“Are you deaf?” Asik cried out in that wild, harsh falsetto young girls use in desperate moments. Her sister looked down. “He said I have a rare talent, too. It’s not just your precious Inna.”
Over the years, Roman Ivanovich had seen all strains of sibling rivalry. This one, he could already tell, was particularly toxic. The mother favored the older daughter. But Inna seemed too nice to exploit such emotional ammunition, thus withholding from Asik permission to fully throw herself into the rebellion she so craved.
Asik looked at him as if he were about to give away the last ticket to the Ark. He put his hand on her crown — her hair was coarse and sticky, like a cub’s — and ever so slightly she buckled into the eave of his shoulder.
“I promise to study hard, I promise.” Asik spoke only to him. “Honestly. Please take me.”
“Fine, get her off my hands,” the mother said. “One more bad mark at school, and she’ll be too bruised to wear those skimpy dresses. Seriously, Roman Ivanovich, we can’t pay.”
“Deal,” he said, matching her haggling stare. “She’ll attend free of charge.”
Eight minutes later they disappeared into the gates of summer. His headache had gone, too.
* * *
All summer Roman Ivanovich swung and turned his stocky but not yet hopeless physique around their small living room. Nata, rosy from working on the vegetable patch, sometimes joined him, testing the steps Asik would have to learn in the fall. Her blue eyes lit up with memories of a life well danced. She could still follow his lead effortlessly, although there was more flesh between them now. Her short, once-sporty figure reminded him of a hen’s: ample bust and backside, drumstick legs. Those small feet that used to excite him.