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“Be like a peacock and dance with all your beauty.”—Debasish Mridha
Be like a Peacock (and Dance with All Your Beauty)
Liza was lounging on the upholstered sofa in the parlor of the Moscow suite they were staying in the night before the parade honoring the World Championship team, waiting for her nails—painted ruby to match the coat of the suit she would wear to tomorrow’s festivities—when Papa emerged from his bedroom, his expression spelling out trouble more effectively than any letters could have.
“I just got a call from your mama.” Papa was beating a tattoo against his thigh with the cell phone he still clutched in his hand. “She says she got a note on your most recent report saying you’d been fighting.”
Wishing that Papa sounded less as if she had been accused of some heinous crime like murder and more as if she had just been guilty of childhood rambunctiousness, Liza pointed out, although she had the sneaking suspicion that the argument wouldn’t garner her much leniency, “It was only once, so it’s not like I’m some repeat offender or hardened criminal, Papa.”
“Once is too much, Liza.” Just as she had predicted, Papa shook his head, not losing an ounce of his sternness. “Now, tell me, if your mama hadn’t gotten that note on your school report, would I ever have heard about this fight?”
“Yes, Papa,” Liza said, and she meant it, even if she didn’t blame him for doubting her word based on the evidence. “After we got back from the parade and everything, I was going to tell you.”
“After the parade,” echoed Papa, arching an eyebrow. “Let me guess. You didn’t want me to not allow you to go as punishment.”
“That’s right.” Liza bit the inside of her cheek so hard that she knew she would have a swollen lump there in an hour, because when Papa phrased it like that, what she had done sounded awfully manipulative.
“You aren’t allowed to withhold telling me the truth to try to control which punishment you receive,” scolded Papa. “The reason it’s called a punishment, Liza, is that you aren’t supposed to enjoy it and will think twice about doing whatever got you into trouble again.”
“I know.” Liza massaged her temples, wishing that she had confessed her misbehavior in the first place, since Papa was almost definitely going to say she couldn’t go to the parade now, and she couldn’t blame him. “I’m sorry, Papa. Am I not allowed to go to the parade now?”
“We’ll discuss the details of your punishment later.” Papa sat down on the cushion next to her and gave her knee a light squeeze. “I just want you to understand that no matter how much you fear I’m going to punish you a certain way, you still have to be honest with me, and let me decide what your punishment is.”
“I understand, Papa,” whispered Liza, staring down at the knee he had touched, because she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze.
“Remember, too, that the punishment might not be as bad as you fear, Liza.” Papa tilted her chin up until her sad eyes were fixed on his serious ones. “Just because you think I will punish you in a certain way doesn’t mean I will. A papa has to keep his daughter on her toes. It’s one of the most important rules of fatherhood.”
Grateful that there was still some hope for her yet, Liza nodded, and Papa went on firmly, “Go to your room, please, and think about why what you did was wrong. I’m going to take a walk around the gardens to think about what you’ve done and how exactly I want to handle it. I’ll knock on your door when I’m ready to resume this discussion.”
Although being banished to her bedroom was on the top of the list of things Liza hated, she knew better than to protest when she still had some chance of going to the parade and disappeared into her hotel room without a word. Once she had closed the door behind her, she sighed and flopped on the bed. Doing her best to obey her papa, since he had an uncanny and inconvenient knack of sensing when she didn’t, she shut her eyes and reflected back on her fight, trying to think of what she had done as wrong, but unable to overcome the belief that it was right, even if fighting was against the rules. The rules—undoubtedly written by cold-blooded teachers whose last human emotion had died a decade ago—had to be wrong when they clashed so obviously with what her conscience screamed was right. Burrowing her head in the mountain of pillows on her oversized king bed, which had a mattress so fluffy that not even the proverbial princess could have felt a pea under it, Liza felt herself transported back to that corridor in Nymphenberg Palace in Munich, where she had been pinching her arm in an attempt to stay awake while their tour guide offered another monotone lecture on the history and architecture of the grand building…
“Psst.” Suddenly, the biggest bully in the entire grade, Viktor Ivanov, had been behind her and tugging on her braid so forcefully that her scalp prickled and she hadn’t needed to pinch herself to keep herself from falling asleep any longer. “Liza.”
“What?” Liza had hissed, turning so that her braid would be out of reach of Viktor’s meaty fists.
“Did you know that your father won the World Championships?” Viktor had a cruel gleam in his eyes that suggested this was anything but a polite inquiry.
“Of course I did.” Liza had shot him her most withering glance. “He’s my papa, after all.”
“There’s no of course about it.” Viktor’s sneer had covered the whole lower half of his face in an ugly mask. “Not with girls. Girls don’t know anything, especially about hockey.”
“Keep running that big mouth of yours, Viktor.” Liza had rolled her eyes at this typical Viktor insult. “Maybe one day it will say something insightful or something that gets all its teeth knocked out. It’ll be exciting to see which happens first.”
“You tell him, Liza.” Beside her, Liza’s best friend, Nika, had nodded in grim approval. “He’s nothing but a disgusting wart of a bully, and you’re worth ten of him.”
“That’s a laugh.” Viktor had emitted a chuckle that grated like the lid being pried off a tin can. “Everyone knows that boys are worth ten girls. In fact, I bet Liza’s papa wishes she were a son. Here he is, one of the best hockey players in the whole world, and he doesn’t have a son to play hockey with, just a stupid daughter who probably doesn’t even understand the difference between icing and high-sticking.”
“Everybody understands the difference between icing and high-sticking.” Liza’s hands had clenched into fists and she held them up as a warning that she intended to defend herself physically if the need arose. “And, for your information, my papa is extremely proud of me.”
“Don’t tell me you believe him when he tells you that lie?” Viktor had snickered, elbowing Liza in the stomach in a manner that was anything but friendly. “Girls are so dumb. He just says that so you don’t cry, because girls are so annoying when they cry that they deserved to be drowned in their own tears.”
“You’re going to be crying worse than any girl that ever walked the planet before you blink,” Liza had retorted, hitting just below his eye with a left hook before he had been able to duck.
She had managed to dodge a box to her ear but hadn’t been able to evade a blow to her mouth in which Viktor’s knuckle cut into her lower lip, drawing blood. Spurred on by the metallic taste flooding her mouth, Liza had continued to land punch after punch to every inch of Viktor that her flailing fists could reach, not caring that Viktor was doing the same to her and barely noticing that Nika had joined the fray on her behalf.
Far too soon for Liza’s liking, she had found herself being dragged away from the scrum by Uchitelnista Pavlova, their mathematics teacher and the woman who had been assigned to chaperone their group, who had grabbed Liza in one arm and was clutching Nika in the other. Liza had longed to go on fighting until she had beaten Viktor to a bloody pulp but she had realized, even in her steaming state, that she couldn’t hit a teacher, so she went limp in Uchitelnista Pavlova’s grip. At least Viktor, who had a bloody nose and a bruise already blooming under his eye, seemed to have gotten the worst of their clash.
“Brawling like street urchins instead of acting like little ladies!” Uchitelnista Pavlova had admonished, her lips as thin as razors, and only then Liza had recognized that everybody in the teeming hallway was staring at her, Nika, and Viktor as if they were barbarians looting Rome. “What were you girls thinking?”
“Viktor started it,” Liza had muttered, mopping up the blood seeping out of her lower lip with a swipe of her palm.
“I saw you throw the first punch.” Uchitelnista Pavlova shook Liza forcefully enough that her teeth rattled. “Even if he had started it, that’s not an excuse.”
Riveting her glower on Nika as well as Liza, Uchitelnista Pavlova had continued in a tone as crisp as a snapping branch, “Rest assured that your parents will read about this in the end of term reports, girls. Now, you will go sit on the bench by the main entrance, where we will collect you when the tour is over. If you move so much as a toe from that location, you won’t be allowed to participate in any more activities for the rest of the trip. Am I clear?”
“Yes, uchitelnista,” Liza and Nika had replied in unison.
When Uchitelnista Pavlova had offered a brusque nod of dismissal, the pair of them had spun on their heels and set off down the corridor toward their exile in the main entrance. Once she was confident that Uchitelnista Pavlova was out of earshot, Liza had grumbled to Nika, “It’s not fair that we’re the ones being sent off to the main entrance while Viktor gets to continue the tour when he’s a worse troublemaker than the two of us put together. Life just doesn’t make sense sometimes.”
“It makes perfect sense,” Nika had observed darkly. “Uchitlnista Pavlova trusts the two of us not to go wandering off on a self-guided tour of Munich, but she doesn't have faith that Viktor the Terrible will do the same, so, to separate us, she separate us from his insufferable presence, she sent us off.”
“Do you really think that she’s going to write about this in our reports, Nika?” Liza had asked, hoping that Nika would assure her that Uchitelnista Pavlova’s words had been as hallow a threat as the bark of a lapdog.
“Yeah, it’s a safe bet she will.” Nika had nodded somberly. “We might as well resign ourselves to being punished.”
“I’m staying with my papa when we get back from Germany.” Liza had sighed, not wanting to imagine what her father would say to hear when he learned about her fight.
“No need to look so worried.” Nika had nudged her shoulder. “It’s not like he beats you.”
“I’m not scared of Papa beating me.” Liza had floundered for words to explain that she feared her father’s disappointment fare more than she did his wrath. “I’m afraid that he’ll be disappointed in me.”
“Oh, please stop being an idiot, Liza.” Nika had given a snort that was oddly reassuring. “Whenever I see your papa, it’s obvious that you’re his great pride and joy. Saying you are a disappointment to him would be about as inaccurate as describing water as dry.”
A rap on her hotel room door jolted Liza out of her memory, and she shouted in a rather tremulous voice, “Come in.”
Papa entered and settled himself in front of her on her bed. Once he had arranged himself, he commented, “I hope you’ve been doing a lot of thinking about your fight, Liza.”
“I have.” Liza met his eyes with all the courage she could muster on such short notice. “I don’t think I was wrong, though, Papa.”
“Oh?” Papa forehead furrowed like a turned-over flowerbed. “Why not?”
“I fought Viktor Ivanov—or Ivan the Terrible as everyone except the teachers call him because he’s the biggest bully in the entire grade—since he was making fun of me about you winning the World Championships and saying how you must be disappointed in me because you don’t have a son, just a daughter you can’t teach how to play hockey,” exploded Liza, her words practically tripping over her tongue in her eagerness to justify her pugnacity.
“That wasn’t a very nice thing for him to say.” Papa tucked a stray lock of hair from her ponytail behind her earlobe. “Still that doesn’t give you the right to hit him. You can’t just go around punching people who hurt your feelings. Fighting is never the answer. What you should’ve done instead of attacking Viktor was report him to a teacher. The teacher would’ve handled the situation much better than you did.”
“A bloody nose and a black eye were much more fitting punishment than anything a teacher would’ve given him, Papa.” Liza’s jaw tightened, her palms folding into fists around her blanket. “I did the right thing. He had a good beating coming to him from somebody someday, and I’m glad that I’m the one who gave it to him.”
“Well, I’m not glad you did.” Papa squeezed her shoulders as if to ensure that he had her complete attention. “Your mama and I raised you to be more respectful of others than that.”
“You didn’t.” Liza’s chin lifted, as she thought that Papa had gotten into a fight with Corey Perry once, and nobody had accused Papa of being disrespectful, since everybody figured that if a four-time Lady Byng winner punched you, you were a complete rat who should crawl back into the sewer from whence you came. “I remember you got into a fight with Corey Perry, so you can’t punish me for something you did yourself, Papa, because that’s just not fair.”
“I can when I got punished for fighting, too.” Papa was quick with the counter. “Maybe you don’t remember that I had to go to the penalty box, and when I got back to the bench, I had to stay there for the rest of the game even though it got very cold just sitting there, but I do.”
“Is my punishment a timeout, then?” Liza perked up because a timeout was a pretty painless punishment as far as discipline went.
“No.” Papa folded his arms across his chest. “Your punishment is not a timeout, Liza, so you can wipe that smug smile off your face right now.”
Swallowing as she inwardly berated herself for being enough of an idiot to provoke her papa when he was about to punish her, she choked out, “Is my punishment that I won’t be allowed to attend the parade?”
Papa kept her in suspense for a moment that felt more like ten before he relented. “No, the parade is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I won’t deny you the opportunity to attend even if you were very naughty to get into a fight.”
“Thank you, Papa,” murmured Liza.
“You might not be thanking me when you hear your punishment,” Papa warned her dryly.
“What is my punishment?” Liza bit her lip, telling herself that anything was better than having to miss the parade.
“You’ll be writing me a thousand word essay on why your fight wasn’t acceptable and ways you could have avoided it.” Papa patted her cheek. “It will keep your brain busy now that you’re not in school.”
Under other circumstances, Liza might’ve pointed out that she didn’t want to keep her brain busy while she wasn’t in school, but she had a much larger concern worming through her mind right now, and, unable to hold it back any longer, she burst out, “Papa, am I a disappointment to you?”
“Of course not, Liza.” Papa wrapped an arm about her shoulders and pulled her against his chest so that she could hear the music of each heartbeat. “I’m disappointed that you got into a fight, but that’s disappointment in your naughty behavior and bad choice, not in you. I could never be disappointed in my dear daughter.”
“You’re not disappointed that I’m a daughter?” Liza buried her head in his shirt, desperate to get even closer to him and the comfort he represented. “You don’t love me less because I’m not a son?”
“I could no more be disappointed in you being a daughter than I could in you having blonde hair.” Papa rubbed the nape of her neck. “From the moment I heard that your mama was pregnant with you, I loved you. Before I even knew whether you were a daughter or a son, I loved you, because whether you were a boy or girl made no difference to whether or not I loved you. All I needed to know in order to love you was that you were my baby.”
“You’re a great hockey player.” Liza felt as if she were melting into him, and nothing made her feel more loved than that. “Are you disappointed that I do ballet instead of playing hockey?”
“Certainly not.” Papa’s lips brushed against her hair in a kiss. “Watching you dance brings more beauty and joy to my life than you playing hockey ever could, because ballet is your passion. Besides, it’s good for me to have a life beyond hockey, since the rink isn’t the only important place in the world.”
“In the rink, you’re the best in the world.” Liza lifted her face from his shirt long enough to glance admiringly up at the papa she was convinced was without question the most loving one anyone could ask for. “I’m so proud of you, Papa.”
“I’m proud of you, too, Liza.” Papa’s mouth tickled her cheek as he kissed her. “You’re a perfect mix of your mama and me: you look like her, but you fight like me even if that is a bad thing.”