The Death Class

My knees feel like a dream. They are blurry, tired, and unable to be traced. It's grey and raining outside, but the twinge of pain makes me long to be under the sad weather. Each tendon burns to a numbness, and I cannot figure out if I am in pain or in bliss. What I understand is with every twitch, Edgar Degas groans. He stands behind the large easel, stroking the canvas with paints that match our small waists wrapped in tutus. When twitches become bends or stretches, his groans die, breathing life to bullets from his crimson tongue. The anger in his voice rings as he screams, "Stand still, little monkey girls." I'm fourteen. But most of us are only eight.

An hour earlier, Degas' bouncing eyes studied my figure, dressed in layers of milky tulle. He pointed to the back of the room where I was to lock my knees and lean against the wall, hands folded behind my back, tucked away like they're tied with a chain. My last instruction was to point my gaze toward the piano sitting in front of his canvas. The girls in front of me were to "sit like the rats" Degas says they are.

Degas positioned the other little girls to fiddle with their bows or fluff their dresses. Our ballet master was to stand with absolute control of the room; he did so with a long brown cane wedged between the floor and his left hand. The mothers sat near me, observing their ballerina daughters. Once Degas perfected his picture, he spoke loudly to the room. "Do not move," staring only at the smallest girls, "this is your ballet class."

Now I'm certain my knees are screaming. The burn is fierce, like the drops of rain pelting against the windowpane. I stare into the flat mirror hanging on the light green wall beside me. Between its dark brown frames is the clear reflection of twenty or so corps de ballet ballerinas, holding their small lungs from any movement. Watching their stillness makes me dizzy. I can feel my consciousness moving in and out of this plane, longing to dwindle into the swirling wood beneath my pink slippers.

I'm relentlessly aware again as Degas begins to spit another round of bullets. He aims his tongue at the wobbling girl, Julie, posed in attitude derrière. Her singular standing leg cries viciously as it holds the other floating behind her at ninety degrees. She's been given the worst position. Her jaded limbs and secretions that descend her face send flames from Degas' angered gun. On his throne he shoots, "You are no more capable than an animal." With each shot, I see her silent stature dulling. Still, she's shriveling with poise. As all remnants of control are sandpapered from the quivering Julie, Degas reinstates his paint brush, mumbling "petit rats," the name he gives us little girls.

I watch her, and every organ becomes nauseated. A flaming blush creeps on her cheeks and I hear her breathing grow heavier. Without permission, I snap my head away from Julie's faltering attitude, gnawing on the anxiety built in my mouth. But the panic subsides because the wall looks much kinder than suffering does.

Another hour has lingered. My insides, twisted and tugged, are crawling up my throat. I feel my stomach turning like it had the first time I pliéd for the men trickling into the foyer de la danse: the room where hungry eyes prowl up the fresh scales of child ballerinas, and hook onto the catch they crave most. The night before, my mother warned me of my duty. "Marie," she whispered with the eyes of a beggar, "you are hope."

At eight years old, I was the cure to our moaning stomachs, our ticket to the bourgeoisie, our chance at a better life. She threatened I was blessed. I had the gift of grace. I had the pirouette that could spin me to become a Paris Opéra ballerina. But most of all, I had the porcelain skin and virginal eyes that made me beautiful; the smell that watered the mouths of sharp teeth.

My mother fed me to sharp teeth. She watched as they ripped me to pieces. But my mother was ripped too. Most nights, she'd leave with sadness woven in her green eyes, and come back with a fabricated smile and a handful of money. "This can only be milk and bread," she'd say opening her hands, "But you are our meat and wine."

The hour ticks slowly. Knees numb. Neck stiff. Thoughts running wildly against the empty wall. In the silence of the chaos, I picture who I'd be if I didn't hate ballet. I wonder what the fibers in my skin would feel each time I extended my leg and didn't wish to slash it off. Would I feel release through my fingertips? Could I stand on the ends of my toes without longing for the comfort of death?

Death. I was grace. I wasn't allowed to think about death. But that's what I fancy when my instructor traces his finger up the back of my leg. He touches me without boundaries, "it makes me a better dancer," he vows. "Droit," he says. And I straighten my leg. His finger travels farther, pressing firmly over my derriére, until his palm lands on the lowest point of my back. My left knuckles redden as I grip the bar. He fastens the hand that was free of my body onto my tight stomach. "Bien," he whispers to my core. But to me, gratification only comes in the form of a dark angel. The one that flies circles in my head as I brush my focus to where his was stuck: the gap in my dress made by the valley between my breasts. His heavy breath moistens my neck. One last squeeze of my torso, and with the cadence of the piano, he limps off to the next girl dreaming of death.

Un, deux, trois, quatre. The numbers of ballet ring through my head, blinding the pain of several lost hours standing for Degas. Un, deux, trois, quatre. I think about my first audition as a corps de ballet dancer when I was eight. The numbers rang in my head then too. Tendu, un, tendu, deux. I was positioned downstage. I remember standing to the left, too timid to dance in the center. Even in the corner where I stood, demonstrating the point of my foot, my 'blessing' came to fruition. The instructor noticed my stature: the legs that were always droit, the soft smile I used as a prop. He was fascinated by my hungered body, taken by my fresh skin. His head swayed with the strength in my flowing arms. I never lost focus, even as he moved in front of me. He spoke, "Tendu, trois, tendu, quatre." My focus became his. "Un, deux, trois, quatre." He peered into my 'hope for a better life.' He captured the taste of my virginal eyes.

My knees hurt. The pain rushes back as I exile the numbers from my head. Degas is still painting, still groaning, and I'm still facing the wall, praying to remember what hour it is now, and what hour it was then. Then. I don't know when then was, but I know my knees hurt. I remember the sound of raindrops. And I remember Julie in attitude. How many hours had passed since she dulled? I've become so connected to the rampage in my brain, I forgot when my knees had last felt numb.

Numb. Numbness was my true blessing. The blessing I kept secret from my mother. I could feel nothing and wonder if it was pain or bliss. I've had six years to perfect my blessings: the eyes, the smile, the hips that poked through narrow fabrics, and the gift of feeling deadened when men chose me to be their blessing for the night. I was the statue of their hope, their chance at pleasure. I was freshly nine when I began to understand what my mom meant by "a better life." I remember a man with drooping eyes and a thick bed of facial hair gifting me with a private dinner on the balcony of his château. He was one of the men in the foyer de la danse that my mother directed to watch me dress into my tutu. The man was polite. He held my hand up the stairs and to the table. He served me cake. He asked about my pursuits as a ballerina, what kinds of dresses I would like to own, and where I would like to live; for a moment, I mistook him as the father I never met. He was tall and muscular. Spoke with his chest wide and his neck straight; he looked like a protector. I was naive then and thought he might like to care for me. That idea dissipated when the pit of my stomach was coiling after dinner; when I slept in his bed, lips glued to silence with young saliva, failing to understand what happened to my nude form as the sun vanished with my girlhood.

Girlhood. When did my mother lose hers? I feel her guilt for selling mine so quickly. "Marie, you look beautiful," she says with the same beggar-eyes. "Marie, do you like your new bows?" But I don't want to talk; it will ruin the sensation of a paralyzed conscious. "How was rehearsal, Marie?" And my stillness bruises her. "Marie, please speak." But if I speak, I will destroy her hope. I would tell her I hate ballet, that I hate men. I would tell her I'd rather be hungry, that I'd rather be dead.

Julie wants to die too. Right now, in attitude, and back then, when she was seven and first felt the jagged palm of a man brushing against her shimmering scales. "Dead fish," she says to me now that we're both fourteen and have been paid by passing men who indulge in gutting us. Julie told me she has dreams of a crystal blue ocean, her and I swimming through the ripples, untouched by handsy fishermen who fillet our bellies for glistening eggs. With a veil of depression sunken in her skin, she says, "But in this life we are only dead fish."

"Petits rats." Degas intervenes. "Une heure." My knees will be free in one hour but, I'm too woozy to be grateful. I cannot decipher reality, and my body is pulsating with thick aches. Numbness feels impossible; my muscles are angered, and my ears are exhausted by the heavy exhales of Julie still in attitude. Degas is racing his brush—every scratch like an anesthetized lullaby—as my mind spills against this ugly wall. In this room is a sea of dying fish, and their dead mothers who sell larvae for meat and wine. The white-haired men throw pink satin on tiny fins and teach us little fish that discomfort is poise, that it's sensual. Degas is repulsed by the ridges in our scales but fascinated by our exposed gills that reek of hormonal bait for wealthy men. I feel green, like my mother's sick eyes. Ballet makes me ill, noise feels like hell, and I hate silence. My eyes are falling.

         Falling. I am on the floor. My mouth is uncontrollably screaming, and my once graceful anatomy is fluttering against the hollow floor. "Un, deux, trois, quatre!" The only sound is my blistering lungs and my stomping feet. "Un, deux, trois, quatre," I yell again. I've bent all my limbs, breaking the principles of ballet. With wide eyes, I charge the master and open my mouth. The wind from my hot breath travels into the pores of his neck. "How does it feel?" I exhale violently. "How does my breath feel?"

         Everything is stone save me. Degas' mouth, once fearless to spill his hate for women, is soldered with the swelter of my voice. I spin in endless circles, screaming, "Big rat." I'm violent and loud. "Big rat!"

         I dance with heavy feet. I'm flexing my ankles, contorting my elbows, flopping my legs, slouching my shoulders, and I finally know how it feels to like ballet. Except, I'm not dancing like a ballerina. I'm dancing like a heathen, like a reckless girl. I'm moving like freedom flows: psychedelic and rampant. My body is a predator to the ballet class. My barbarian legs kick fat holes in the wall, and the rain charges through, making tutus soggy and sheet music illegible. The weather is as primitive as I am, circling the wet floors with rage. The room fills and I'm awake, swimming in Julie's crystal blue ocean.

         Awake. My eyes open and I'm looking at a dry wall. I begin to feel the dream in my knees, the one I felt hours ago. I turn my head - Julie is still in attitude.

         "Fin," Degas says, signing his name at the bottom left of the canvas. Julie crumbles. She lays on the floor with sharp tears skimming her scarlet cheeks. The other girls silently sigh and curse the cruelty of their lives as they undo their poses. The calloused mothers beeline to Degas to collect their daughter's pay. I'm still standing Stiff. Graceful. Coming to terms with the delusion I fell for.

         Degas proudly swivels the canvas, and all eyes fall onto their individual portrait within the sea of ballerinas. With pride, he says, "A landscape of ugly little girls." I move closer to the painting. I see myself in the back, staring helplessly at the wall. The ballerinas look distorted. Degas' paint brush warped their faces to have animalistic features. The colors of the canvas are bright, as if the rain had lived only in my imagination. There are oily shadows on the floor; the dark spots feel like men who watch us suffer in the dresses they buy and force off.

         There is Julie. The curves in her arms are weak. Her face, sick with red, looks like a bleeding wound. Degas grips Julie's arm and points to her attitude, "Weak girls look like monkeys." And she walks out of the room with a straight back and good manners.

I'm sitting with my legs crossed at the dinner table. My mother sets down the white plate. I'm numb and silent as my eyes stiffen, peering into the pink flesh of the steaming dead fish. Neglecting the silver tools, I mindlessly finger her tough muscles. Her tendons burn like mine. My hand slides over her buttery meat, and my mother asks, "Marie, why are you touching the fish?" And for the first time in days, I reply, "Because in this life, I am only a dead fish."

Published in Brushing Art & Literary Journal 2024