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How had she gotten here to this point in her life? Lilia Baranovskaya stared at her reflection in the glass window, simultaneously watching all the young couples chatting. Young people infuriated her, the way they thought they were invincible, and the way they thought they would stay young forever, as if life would be golden ten or thirty or fifty years down the line. Who did they think they were?
Lilia stuffed her bony, wrinkly hands, once soft and warm, into the pockets of her fashionable yellow coat. The wind in Moscow was incredibly cold, and it blew in a way that stung, as if daring her cheekbones to see whether it or they were sharper. Even so, her hair stayed impeccably in a place, a bun pulled high on her head so that not a single strand fell out of place or tickled her skin. It was a habit from days long past.
She had been young once, a long time ago. Long before she ran a school for dance, long before she was asked to choreograph for the Bolshoi Ballet, long before she had grown old and gaunt and miserable, she had been young, once. She closed her eyes, reminiscing.
She was a dancer, and oh, what a dancer she was! The prima of the Bolshoi Ballet. There were not many, even to this day, who could claim that title. She remembered it all: the music, the endless hours and nights spent practicing, the soreness, the taut feeling of a perfect tendu . It was not all bad, either. There were the other girls, who, like her, must all have been past their prime by now. The way they giggled together at the male dancers who would do lifts for them, Lilia still remembered it well.
And the boys! When you do ballet, when you walk with the air of confidence that comes with being a dancer, when you have a dancer’s body, boys fall for you, left and right, sometimes afraid to look in your eye. She remembered the way boys would gawk at her, awkward and shy, scared to approach her. But there was one boy in particular who she could never forget, who was never afraid of her.
Although the memories of that boy were now tainted, Lilia still remembered the first time she met the boy who stole her heart and ran.
It was late June, and the heat was sweltering. Even in Russia, it can get warm, and after an hour of stretches and pliés and “ un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois ,” sixteen year old Lilia was starting to get sweaty. Who should walk in through that door but a grumpy looking boy with dirty blond hair, almost a man fully grown, glaring at all the dancers and their reflections in the mirrors that surrounded them.
“Alright, class,” her ballet teacher stopped everyone. “Starting today, this is our new student, Yakov Feltsman. Let’s show him how to be a true dancer, shall we?”
The boy rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to be a dancer,” he spat, with a confidence, no, a cockiness, that Lilia had never seen in anyone other than herself. “Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not here to be a pansy. I’m here because I want to win the Grand Prix Final in December, and my coach says I need to take ballet.”
Lilia smirked. This boy wouldn’t last two months under Mlle Schneider. After all, she was once the prima at a famous German company, and she worked her students hard. If anyone could get a dancer into the Bolshoi ballet, it was her. No, this boy would drop out soon, go back to the ice where he belonged, and probably never be the better for it.
Yakov’s eyes met Lilia’s, and he scowled. “What are you smirking about, asshole?”
“What a dirty mouth,” Lilia scoffed, brushing it off as her friends gasped at his crass attitude. She didn’t need to answer to this cretin. Soon, he would be gone, like so many others who thought that all one needed in ballet was a little flexibility and the ability to count music.
She was right, of course, he was an abysmal dancer. He was flexible, she’d give him that, but he treated dance like it was ice skating. His movements were floppy, and his leg work weak. She tutted underneath her breath, making sure he heard, when she pirouetted past him perfectly. His angry reaction when he stumbled and fell was priceless.
Hours later, as Lilia was leaving, her hair still tight and high in its bun, Yakov confronted her in the parking lot.
“Oi!” he called. “Ugly pig, what the hell?!”
“Oh? Don’t use such unattractive words to describe yourself,” she quipped.
“I’m talking to you, baba ,” he growled.
“What the hell were you doing back there?”
“Dancing,” she replied coldly. “Something you wouldn’t understand, so go back to skating where you belong.”
“I told you - “
“You’re not going to last two months, you pig,” Lilia whipped around. “I’ve seen you. I’ve seen a thousand skaters like you. Ballet is so much more than you could believe. If you want to do it at all, then do it well. Don’t do it halfway and then quit because if you’re not willing to throw your entire body and soul into it, then you’re doing it wrong.” She had glared at him, daring him to prove her wrong. Now, over fifty years later, Lilia was still not sure whether something had changed in his face. His expression was still grumpy, his eyebrows furrowed, but there had been some sort of light in his eyes, some pink flush across his face. She might have imagined it, her young, naive heart longing to have him smitten with her so she could prove herself better than him, keep her high horse. She still didn’t know, but it was possible that it had happened like that.
“Two months.” He mumbled it.
“What?” she hissed.
“Two months.” Bright blue eyes glared straight back. “If I can last two months studying here, you owe me an apology.”
Lilia was surprised neither of them burned down from the contempt the two had felt for each other. “Deal. If you can do it.”
They shook on it, but Lilia was sure she would win.
Yakov Feltsman surprised her. The next day, and the day after, and every day after that, Yakov was at the studio before she was, stretching. She walked by him without a word each time. Each day, however, she noticed how he grit his teeth, never complaining when pushed down, never staring down in shame when he lost his balance or fell, but instead staring defiantly up at the others, at his own reflection. Two days became two weeks, which soon became two months, and finally two years.
One day, Lilia finally approached him. “You’re an old timer,” she crossed her arms, pretending to act unimpressed.
Yakov took a long drink from his water bottle, toweling the sweat off his forehead. “And you never gave me that apology.”
“So you remembered.”
“So I did.”
“Why didn’t you demand an apology?” she was genuinely curious. She had never met a man who didn’t demand apologies like they were God’s given right.
He shrugged. “I wanted to prove you wrong. But along the way, it really was helping my skating, and that was the more important thing, really. And I guess I wanted you to say it to me. It’d be nice to see that princess have to subject to me.”
Lilia groaned. “Incredible, you’re like every other pigheaded guy I’ve ever met.”
Yakov snorted. “Nah, those pansies, they’re too scared to even talk to you. You walk with confidence, and that scares the hell outta them.”
“But not you.”
“Listen, princess,” he sneered. “I’m not afraid of dancers. Nothing wrong with a little confidence.”
“A little?” she raised a perfectly arched eyebrow.
He laughed raucously. “You’ve got the flare to be a really good figure skater, you know?”
Now it was Lilia’s turn to laugh. “I’ll keep my feet on the ground, thank you very much.” She caught Yakov staring. “What?”
“Nothing,” he replied, and fifty years later, Lilia knew for sure he had blushed then. “I’ve just never heard you laugh. It’s… nice.”
After that encounter, Lilia didn’t know what to say or think of Yakov Feltsman. Another week, and then another month, and then another year passed, but by the end of the year, Yakov was gone. It seemed he had quit the very next day and gone back to dedicating all his time to figure skating.
Good riddance , Lilia thought when she heard, but a part of her felt sad. For the first time in years, she made a misstep, accidentally coming in too late with her pas du chat . No one, save perhaps Mlle Schneider, noticed. It was the barest misstep, but Lilia knew it was because of Yakov Feltsman. She hated herself for allowing a pig like him to throw her off like that.
She was nineteen years old, a whole year after Yakov told her she had a nice laugh, before she saw him again. She wasn’t looking for him, but as she swooned (she remembered swooning. It was Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker , and she was Marie, so of course she swooned) on the stage, her eyes caught a glimpse of a familiar face. It was a little more rugged than before, his hair grown out a bit, and from this distance, she couldn’t see the color of the eyes, but she swore it was Yakov Feltsman. She berated herself for thinking stupid things in her head and continued on her performance, thinking nothing of it and forgetting about him.
That is, she forgot about him until the end of the night. After all the other guests had cleared out, and even the other members of the ballet troupe had gone home, Lilia walked down the hallway to exit the building, only to find a young man with rugged blond hair, holding a bouquet of roses the same red color as her lipstick from the evening.
“Here,” Yakov all but shoved them at her. “You weren’t half bad.”
Lilia glared at him. “Did you come to mock me?”
“I came to see you dance,” he replied. He looked uncomfortable. Clearly, for all his cockiness, this man did not often interact with women. “It was… nice,” he finished awkwardly, his blue eyes shining.
The ballerina was glad she had not yet taken off her makeup. She didn’t want Yakov to see her blush, even back then. “Thank you,” she answered, touched. He wasn’t exactly complimenting her, but somehow, it felt more flattering than when the others fawned over her. He nodded and turned to go.
And then the next day, he was back, to see her dance again, and he had another bouquet. And the day after that. And the day after. And when her troupe performed in St. Petersburg, there he was, each and every show. And then it was Sochi, and then Oskrava, and then Paris, and somehow, Yakov was always there.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, Lilia found herself looking forward to each performance, knowing she would see Yakov afterward, knowing they would talk, short conversations at first, but gradually getting longer and longer until they talked all night long. And then one day, as they talked and laughed back in Moscow, the mood grew heavier, and more tender. All at once, the sun was coming up too quickly, and the silver Moscow sky was slowly leaking into pink and orange and blue, and it meant another day without Yakov, another day of sweat and soreness, and right then and there, Yakov Feltsman kissed her .
Lilia’s heart did a chassé . Yakov pulled away, staring into her eyes. “Sorry,” he grumbled. “I should go. I have a flight in four hours, and - “
“A flight?” she whispered, disbelieving.
“Back to my home rink in Leningrad,” Yakov said sadly. “Qualifiers for the Grand Prix Final are coming up. If I can’t make it past the Russian nationals, I can’t go.” He touched the side of her hair gently. “I liked watching your ballet, though. I’ll be thinking of you in my skating.”
It was rare to see him so tender, so gentle. “Can I come see, then? It’s only fair, you pig,” she replied, indignant. She didn’t want this; she didn’t ask for him to be tender, to say goodbye, to think of her in his skating.
“Sure,” was all he said, probably certain that she wouldn’t come.
He wasn’t the only one who could show up at performances and surprise the star, though. Lilia managed to pull some strings and get front row seats for the Grand Prix in the United States. It was difficult, especially with tensions so high between the Soviet Union and the United States, but she managed. She would show that pig that she could do just as much as he could.
It seemed that he always surprised her, though. Three years ago, when he first came to the ballet studio, Lilia thought he was a quitter, or worse, a dabbler. He did not seem capable of pouring himself into ballet the way she did. Now she saw why: Yakov Feltsman had already given everything to figure skating. She didn’t know what any of the moves were, but the way he glided on the ice, soaring up like a rocket launching into space, and landing down perfectly, his skates shaving a thin layer of powdery flakes over the ice was clear. They were both prima ballerinas, just on and off the ice. When Yakov extended his leg during a spin, high above his head, parallel to his upturned neck, she gasped. She felt the ache in his leg, the dizziness of the spin, the countless hours he had spent practicing in Leningrad and in Moscow and who knows where else, all the competitions he had been in flooding into that exact moment right before the music and he stopped. She knew it well; after all, had she not known the very same feeling in ballet? They had both sold their souls to an art, it seemed.
He did not win. Yakov looked crushed when his score was announced at the end of the weekend: a total of 250.43. Third place. Bronze. Still, he did not look ashamed. He was angry, Lilia knew, refusing to be disappointed, but he accepted his medal with grace, standing on the lowest part of the podium.
As he emerged from the rink, she was waiting on the edge of the railing.
“Hey, pig!” He looked up, surprised. She grinned. “You weren’t half bad yourself,” she said cheekily, handing him a bouquet of roses.
Yakov smiled, and at that moment, he might as well have won gold judging by his expression.
And then a year later, it was Lilia’s audition for the Bolshoi Ballet. It was a blur, honestly. She didn’t remember anything about it except her white leotard, tight against her body, like a lover’s caress. The spotlight was blinding, and she could feel the sweat drip down her back as she finished in a perfect split, a princess winding onto the floor and dying. She breathed heavily, her hair still intact. If she didn’t make it in, she didn’t know what she would do. At age twenty, she was still limber, but if she didn’t make it in soon, she would never have the career she wanted. Even worse, she had dedicated her entire life to ballet. She could not face the idea that her dreams might shatter. Those feelings were all she could remember from her audition. After that, the only thing she knew was everyone congratulating her. Mlle Schneider hugging her. Even the judges applauded her. Still in disbelief, she watched a young man approach her with a small smile, a bouquet of roses. Everything was so loud, and yet in her memory, it was silent; only her heart pounded. The young man got down on one knee and held out the bouquet laid sideways across his hands, revealing the glimmering gold band. Lilia must have said yes. She must have known what it meant. She must have loved Yakov at that moment. She must have been happy.
Fifty years later, Lilia Baranovskaya sighed. That was a long time ago, back when they were both young. Now here she was, nearing seventy, living alone and giving her entire life to ballet even when her bones and muscles could not handle it. That was the issue, she knew. Neither Yakov nor she knew a greater love than for their art. Between their clashing dispositions and their time spent apart due to ballet and figure skating, there was no way they could have stayed together. Lilia glanced back at the restaurant, at the young couples eating together and laughing with each other, still so in love. Yakov once told her that skaters’ hearts were fragile and shattered easily. That’s where they differed the most. Ballerinas, especially primas, could not have fragile hearts. By the time they become primas, they have already given up their hearts so they could dance, so they could be beautiful, be loved - no, be adored , accepting adulation, that cheap imitation of love, as a substitute for something they could never have.
Her phone beeped in her pocket. She glanced at the caller, raising an eyebrow. “What do you want?” she answered it.
“Lilia,” she had not heard this gruff voice in nearly twenty years. It still had the same cadence, but he sounded much more tired, much older. “I have a favor to ask. A skater of mine, he’s young. He’s ambitious. And I need a good choreographer.”
“Ask someone else, Yakov,” Lilia replied sharply.
“... You’re the only one I can ask.” Yakov sighed. “Even now, you’re the best, Lilia. Look, this boy, Yuri Plisetsky - “
“I refuse to waste my time on just another quitter, Yakov.”
“... You said that about me once, and I surprised you.”
“So?”
“Yuri Plisetsky is fifty times the skater I ever was,” he sighed heavily again. “He’s younger and hungrier for success. Sprightly, too. He has a spirit to him.”
Lilia heard the fondness in his voice, fondness that he also used to have for her. He always did care about his students when he started coaching. She remembered how he sometimes missed marriage counseling because a student needed extra coaching or got into an accident. She remembered when he first started teaching Viktor Nikiforov to skate, a small boy, only five years old. And now he was world famous, wasn’t he?
He has a spirit to him . Had she not been like that once? Young and ambitious and ready to do anything to win without ever giving up her pride. There weren’t many young people like that anymore.
“Fine,” she finally said curtly. “But he will not have an easy time, Yakov. If he’s not prepared to give his everything, his body and soul, to changing, then I leave. And if I feel he has no potential, I’m gone. Do you understand?”
“Yes, thank you, Lilia,” there it was. That old fondness.
Lilia looked straight ahead. “Very well. I will book a flight for St. Petersburg for tomorrow.”
She hung up. Her expression remained intimidating, sharp, unamused, but she sighed inwardly. How lovely, and yet how sad it would be to be young again.