The Twelve Little Cakes (26 page)

“
Dobry den!
Thank you very much for coming,” she announced. “We have a long day ahead of us. The way the selection process will work is that I'll call everyone's name in alphabetical order, forming groups of thirty that will audition together.”

She began to read from a long list of names, and the girls she selected kissed their mothers good-bye and climbed the stairs like a flock of sacrificial lambs. Once the first group had been formed, the girls followed Mrs. Saturday down the hall, while the rest of us had to wait in the lobby until they finished. The wait was unbearable. After what seemed like an eternity, Mrs. Saturday reappeared and began to read more names from her list. I prayed that my name would be called because I wasn't sure that my nerves would hold out. Fortunately, I was the last girl in group two, and my knees began to shake as I heard my name echo through the lobby. I let go of my mother's hand and followed Mrs. Saturday to a small dressing room opposite one of the studios. The girls and I changed quickly and then were ushered across the hallway, walking past the five-person auditioning committee that sat at a long table at the front of the room. The studio was freezing cold, and we all warmed our backs against the radiators that lined the walls. The fat pianist I had seen in Mrs. Saturday's class two years earlier strode into the room and sat behind her piano, while Mrs. Saturday divided us into three lines. I looked up as she passed me, hoping for a glimpse of recognition, but her face betrayed nothing and I felt sick with fear. Even though we were only five or six years old, everyone in the group knew that the school only accepted one student in ten, and each of us desperately wanted to be chosen.

“Very well, we will begin!” Mrs. Saturday boomed. “We will examine you individually at first, so when we call your name, please step forward and let us take a good look at you.”

One after the other, we stood in front of the committee and let Mrs. Saturday examine us like horses, measuring and testing the elasticity of our limbs, pushing our legs up as high as they would go. Whenever a girl was able to touch her forehead with her foot, the committee members would whisper to each other and nod approvingly. No one said a word as I was examined. I could hear the vertebrae cracking in my spine as Mrs. Saturday forced my legs up and down.

When the individual examination was over, we were told to exercise at the bar. The pianist played a cheerful waltz, while Mrs. Saturday made us kick our legs in time, and while I kicked each leg as high as it would go, the bar was still slightly too high for me to reach, and it was obvious that the taller girls were doing a much better job. To make matters worse, I could see the reflection of the committee in the mirror, and none of the ladies were even looking in my direction. I felt like crying, but I gritted my teeth and persevered to the end.

“Very well,” Mrs. Saturday said as the pianist finished her waltz with a flourish. “Now step out onto the floor and we will end the audition with five minutes of improvisation.”

The girls scattered around the studio, splaying their feet into the fifth position and raising their arms like professional ballerinas. The pianist walked over to the record player in the corner of the room and was about to put the needle on the record.

“Maybe not the Prokofiev this time,” Mrs. Saturday stopped her. “Could you please put on side two of the other record?”

The pianist looked vaguely surprised and she removed the record from the turntable and replaced it with another.

After a short pause, the urgent sound of an oboe warbled into the studio, and as soon as the first notes crackled from the speakers, my body was electrified. It was the final act of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra's famous recording of
Swan Lake.
My heart heaved with emotion, and I stood up on my toes and took control of the space. While the other girls danced more or less on the spot, I began to dance through the studio in search of my prince. I knew every bar of this ballet by heart, but more important, I knew the story behind the music. In the last act of
Swan Lake,
Odette waits for her prince to arrive, knowing that if he doesn't show up in time, she will turn back into a swan and die of a broken heart. In the populist version, the prince does arrive in time, but in the classic version, he is delayed, and Odette's climaxing dance is filled with desperation. As Mrs. Saturday and the committee looked on in amazement, I re-created this desperation, dancing frantically across the room from the window to the door and listening for the sound of Mr. Slavicky's steps. The music thundered and roiled like a stormy sea as I searched every corner of the room for my prince, knowing all too well that if I couldn't find him, I was doomed to turn back into a swan.

When the music stopped, I opened my eyes to see the whole class staring at me. One of the girls actually giggled with embarrassment, until Mrs. Saturday cleared her throat loudly. She walked across the room to the auditioning committee, and after a hushed conference, she clapped her hands.

“Would you ladies please step back against the wall?” she said, indicating the majority of the girls. Then she looked directly at me. “We'll try that again and give you a little bit more space,” she told me. “Just try to relax and let it come, okay?”

“Okay,” I said nervously.

The other girls moved back, glaring daggers at me as Mrs. Saturday instructed the pianist to replay the record, and for the next five minutes I danced as though my life depended upon it, letting the music carry me through the room. I searched for my prince and was heartbroken by his absence, and before I knew it, the audition was over.

“Thank you very much, ladies—that will be all,” Mrs. Saturday announced. “We'll notify you of our decision at the end of the school year.”

The class left the studio and returned to the dressing room. As I passed Mrs. Saturday, I felt her hand briefly brush against my shoulder, but when I looked up, her face was as impassive as ever. I'll never know for sure, because I never had the courage to ask, but I've always believed that Mrs. Saturday deliberately changed the record to give me a chance in the audition. The committee hadn't even looked at me when I first entered the room, but as I left, I could feel their eyes burning into my back.

I changed out of my leotard and slippers in a daze, and hurried down to the lobby.

“How did it go?” my mother asked.

“I think I got in!” I whispered excitedly. “Mrs. Saturday played the final act of
Swan Lake,
and she asked me to dance Odette by myself in front of the committee!”

“Really?” she said. “That sounds promising. I guess sending you to Mrs. Sprislova's school must have really paid off.”

“I hope so,” I told her. “All the other girls were so much taller than me. And they had proper leotards and everything.”

“We'll buy you a proper leotard, don't worry,” my mother sighed. “But in the meantime, how about I take you down to the Florenc bus station and we can have lunch with Klara at the buffet?”

“That would be great!”

Now that my nerves had settled, I discovered that I was terribly hungry. When we arrived at the station, we joined a large crowd of customers and waited to be served. I couldn't help noticing that most of the customers were men.

“Klara's going to be very surprised when she sees us!” I said.

My mother smiled as we worked our way through the crowd, and then her smile suddenly vanished. Hilda's buffet was fronted by a large glass counter, and while the counter contained an eye-catching array of little cakes and sausages, the main attraction appeared to be my sister's breasts. Klara stood behind the counter in a low-cut stretch T-shirt, and she had taken off her bra underneath it. Most of the customers appeared to know her by name, and whenever they placed an order, Klara would lean revealingly forward as she scooped up their purchases and poured them their drinks. The men watched her in amazement, and after Hilda had rung up an arbitrary total on the cash register (the prices were written illegibly in chalk, so she cheerfully charged whatever she liked), the men would round the bill up to the nearest five or ten crowns and give it to Klara as a tip. Judging by the size of the crowd and the amount of money changing hands, my grandmother and sister were making a small fortune.

Klara continued to lean forward and smile at the men until she met my mother's eyes across the counter. She leaped in the air as though a wasp had stung her.

“Mum!” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”

“Dominika had her dancing audition today,” my mother said coolly. “We thought we'd celebrate by visiting you.”

“That 's . . . that's great!” My sister blushed. “What can I get you? Hey, Hilda, look who's here!”

My grandmother looked up from her cash register, and it took her a few moments to place us.

“Ah, Jana!” she said finally. “How surprise I am to see you!”

“I bet,” my mother agreed. “I see you're selling more than just food.”

“Of course,” Hilda replied smoothly. “May I offer you a glass of wine?”

“No, thank you,” my mother shook her head. “It's a little early in the day for drinking, don't you think?”

The two women glared at each other while my sister retreated to the far side of the counter, but before things were able to get completely out of hand, I stood up on my tiptoes so that Hilda could see me.

“
Ahoj,
Grandma!” I called out. “Guess what?”

“Why, it's little Dominika!” Hilda was grateful for the diversion. “What is it, sweetie?”

“I think I got into the National Ballet Preparatory School,” I told her. “I danced all by myself in front of the judges!”

“Really? That's wonderful!” my grandmother smiled. “It sound like it might be a call for a celebration. Why don't you come here and I'll give you a treat?”

“Yes, please!” I said eagerly.

I started to push my way through the crowd, but before I made it around the side of the counter, my mother's hand landed firmly on my arm.

“I think we might keep going,” she told Hilda and me. “We just dropped by to see how you are doing. And now we've seen,” she added ominously.

“Suit yourself,” Hilda shrugged.

“But Mum!” I cried. “I'd like a little cake. I'm hungry!”

“I'll buy you some fruit,” my mother replied. And before I could argue, she took my hand and pulled me away from all the delicious food my sister was selling. I couldn't believe it. There were so many cakes at Hilda's buffet, and they all looked much nicer and more exotic than the little cakes at our local bakery. She even had the hard-to-find cakes, like the swan and the puncher, which was a sponge cake soaked in punch. I could see that my mother was angry at Hilda for letting Klara dress so provocatively, but I was terribly upset that she had declined Hilda's offer for me. I didn't have nice clothes like Klara and I hardly ever got to eat little cakes or sweets, and now it suddenly turned out that my sister was working at a place where there were better cakes than the ones in Cernosice, and even then I still wasn't allowed to have one. It really didn't seem fair. To add insult to injury, my mother took me to a fruit stand and bought me the same stringy, bitter Cuban orange she always bought me as a treat. I really hated these oranges.

I ate it sullenly as we rode the train home in silence.

 

 

THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS were spent in an uproar. My mother was furious at my sister's “immorality,” and our family dinners were tense and formal affairs. My dad's cheerful optimism had no effect on either party, and around the time of my birthday, we were both beginning to think that the rift between Klara and my mother might never be mended. But then two things combined to provide a strange resolution: my mother received a phone call from Mrs. Sprislova, and my sister began to complain of a pain in her spine.

Mrs. Sprislova's phone call was both encouraging and daunting. She had spoken to Mrs. Saturday, and the word from the auditioning committee was that my improvisational dancing had been viewed very favorably, but there were serious concerns about my height and my weight. The height issue was something that could resolve itself later. I would either grow or I wouldn't. But the weight issue was something Mrs. Saturday suggested we look into immediately. I wasn't fat by any means, but I was broad-shouldered and muscular, and according to the Russian height-to-weight ratio the preparatory school was working from, my body was unsuitable for ballet. Mrs. Saturday had said that she would see what she could do, but she strongly suggested that I try to lose as much weight as possible before the start of the school year.

My mother thanked Mrs. Sprislova for the news, and she had just put down the phone when my dad and Klara returned from Prague where they had spent the day consulting a specialist about my sister's back problems. The specialist had run many tests and concluded that Klara's back pains were caused by bad posture on account of her large breasts growing larger as a result of the extra weight she had gained at the buffet. In his opinion, Klara needed to lose eight kilograms, which was roughly twice the amount Mrs. Saturday wanted me to lose.

“Well, that settles it,” my mother said decisively. “It looks like I'm cooking light meals from now on.”

“For everyone?” my dad asked nervously.

“Of course. It's not fair to expect Klara and Dominika to cut down on their food while we are eating heartily. The only fair thing to do is put the whole family on a diet.”

My dad and Klara looked at each other in alarm. Whenever my mother set her mind on doing something, she could be counted on to keep going long after everyone else was desperate to stop.