The Black Swan of Paris by Karen Robards

Author:Karen Robards
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2020-06-28T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

The note she’d left for Max loomed large in her mind. As she made her way to La Fleur Rouge, Genevieve fervently hoped he hadn’t yet seen it and she could tear it up without him ever knowing anything about it. The excuse she’d come up with in case he had found it after all felt flimsy, and she really didn’t want to have to trot it out.

All the hallmarks of a rehearsal in progress—a blast of music, the thump of dancing feet, the smell of sweat—greeted her as the lift doors opened.

She’d left the note propped against the lamp where he couldn’t miss it. It was gone. Her stomach sank even as her appearance garnered a clamorous response.

“Hello, Genevieve!”

“Look, Genevieve, I learned the steps!”

“Genevieve, Madame says we must turn to the left, but I thought—”

A single look around confirmed Max wasn’t there. Anxiety quickened her breathing.

Rehearsal didn’t pause just because she’d arrived. The space was crowded with pirouetting, bell-kicking choristes, the girls bare legged and barefoot in leotards and the boys bare chested and barefoot in tights. They continued belting out “La chanson du maçon,” a new addition to the second act, even as she waved and answered back in response to the greetings, took off her hat and coat, grabbed a leotard from the costume rack and went into the bathroom to change.

She was drained both physically and emotionally, and sick with worry over her mother. But the hard truth of the matter was she had a show that night, and the next night, and the next, with only a few days off here and there. That was her future ad infinitum. Rehearsing was a necessary component of what she did. Having skipped the previous day’s rehearsal, she could not miss this one.

The show must go on was a fact of theatrical life.

In addition, she had to keep up the regular rhythm of her life as Genevieve Dumont in order to do the work Max needed her to do. The survival of her mother was uppermost in importance, but at the moment there was nothing more she could do to ensure that. She could only trust that Emmy had Lillian’s rescue in hand.

When the number started at the top again, she was dressed and ready and plunged right in. With Madame Arnault at the piano pounding away, and the chorus coming in and out on cue, she sang and danced her way through first the numbers that were deemed to need extra work, then the others. Finally, she ran through the opening song of the second act, a plaintive “Parlez-moi d’amour” in which she, alone onstage, accompanied herself on the piano.

Rehearsal ended in the early afternoon. On tenterhooks about where Max was and what he was doing, she went into the bathroom to wash and change before heading downstairs, where a car and driver, presumably Otto, would be waiting to take her back to the Ritz. She was prepared to grill Otto about Max’s whereabouts, but as it happened she didn’t have to.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.