Relevé: To Rise

MY BALLET TEACHER’S studio wall featured a black-and-white photograph of her dancing as the prima ballerina for Boston Ballet in the 1960s. Edra Toth was captured in one of her favorite positions, écarté, which translates from French as “separated” or “thrown apart” because of the way the dancer’s body seems pulled in two different directions. The image was striking in its softness—the elongated L shape of her arms, fingertips floating above her extended leg and curved foot; the profile of her head, slanted down, eyes tracing past her lower arm into the shadow. The fluid lines of her arms and legs glowed white against the black backdrop, and perhaps it was the old camera’s quality, but it was as if she were dancing as a mist, rising up out of the darkness.

I FOLLOWED EDRA out of the studio after an adult ballet class in Dover, New Hampshire. She wore an old fleece and a purple fuzzy hat that resembled an oversized sock. She was carrying a floral bag full of clothes and CD cases, a music player, and a box of tickets for her upcoming production of The Nutcracker.

“Let me help,” I said.

“Oh, don’t worry, I have it,” she said, letting me take the box anyway.

The air cut deep into our lungs, and our breath billowed as we walked across the lot to her car. Now in her sixties, Edra still carried the hard-earned posture and physique of her Boston Ballet days, walking everywhere as if crossing a stage.

I set the box down in her trunk. Edra had her cigarette lit before I looked up—an American Spirit with a plastic tar filter attached, stained brown and red from tar and lipstick. Her thin fingers were layered with rings, and she had long, painted nails that curled at the ends. She puffed daintily, clouds of smoke fading into the night.

Edra had cast me in The Nutcracker as of one of the dancers in the “Waltz of the Flowers.” The show was a couple of months out, and I was nervous. I was twenty-four years old and had never performed en pointe before. But mostly I was excited. I thanked Miss Edra for giving me the part.

She hugged me tight. “I’m your biggest fan,” she said. “My biggest regret with you though—just one regret.” She took another drag, squinting as she blew out. “All those years.”

“In high school?” I asked.

“Yes. All those years you could have been dancing.”

She exhaled her last puff, crushing her cigarette with the toe of her shoe. “And you listen to me,” she said, her eyes locked on me.