Chapter 21Another Building That Won't Let Anyone Dance

The city went quiet for half a second. The tape grew out of the building facades by itself and bound the statue in the middle of the square, ring after ring.

Far off in the mist, the lower half of the Eiffel Tower lit up with a narrow beam. The light was white, and there was a little warmth in the white. It drew up from the foot of the tower into a column, passed through the steelwork, and kept climbing, out of the picture. The top of the tower was still out of sight. On the lower half, the lamps ran in rows. She counted one row, up to the twelfth lamp, and then the mist took the rest away. The narrow beam cut across the middle of that row, and the lamps on either side did not move.

The beam slid off the toe of a shoe that had worn through, and moved onto the wall of a building across the square. One strip along the window frame reddened first, and and a second strip reddened after. Red tape crept down the wall, reached the corner of the building, then climbed onto the iron railing beside the steps, ring over ring. It was a red with no warmth in it.

The statue was a figure draped in cloth, standing on a low platform. Red tape wound up from the edge of the cloth to the top of the platform. The cloth had seven folds, and where the tape had pressed, the folds were flattened, leaving only a white mark. Words were carved into one corner of the plinth. The tape covered half of them, and she could not read them in full. Beside the statue leaned a row of empty frames. They were white, with nothing inside them, and they too had been bound. The tape was printed with a row of tiny numbers, repeated every inch. Every few numbers came a square stamp with nothing written inside it.

People in the street stood where they were. No one shouted. There was only the sound of the tape being pulled tight, one ring and then another, each ring making the same sound.

A person came out of the metro exit, stood at the top of the steps, glanced at the square, and went still. Two uniformed people came out of a doorway opposite, each holding a roll of red tape. They stood at the foot of the steps, watching the tape slowly grow. One of them glanced at the roll in hand, then set it down on the step and laid it very flat, its edge lined up with the edge of the step. They did not start.

Pigeons stood on the stone steps and did not fly. A street-cleaning van had stopped at the far end of the square, its hose still trailing on the ground. Water seeped slowly from the nozzle, and no one went to shut it off. The driver wore dark gloves and sat in the cab without getting out. On the main road in the distance, a bus had stopped at the junction with its doors open, and there was no one at its windows. The edge of the mist pressed against the edge of the square, and could not get in.

In the sky a little west of north, the disc was still hanging. Beside it, a little higher and on the side nearer the tower, a black mouth stood open. The bright side was much wider than last night, more than half of the disc, and its edge was pale violet. Across the dark side were specks of light, in patches. No one in the street looked up.

Swan came down from above the steps.

She went down from the top step. The stone steps came to twenty-six in all, and the bottom three were wide enough to stand on. That day she had sat on the ninth step and watched the whole of that person’s routine. On the way down she had said only one thing, a technical remark, and she had said it while looking at the other person’s feet.

With each step down, the sole of her shoe touched the edge of the stone first, then the flat of it. On the twentieth step a pigeon was walking very slowly, and it did not shy away from people. She passed it, and it did not fly.

Her left foot wore a satin pointe shoe, which made no sound on the wet stone. Her right foot wore an old trainer, worn down, which ground across a length of red tape and gave a dull thud. A white collar of feather pieces stood stiff at the back of her neck, layer over layer, and did not lie down. On the inside of her calf, under the trouser leg, a very fine line of light ran down along the skin. It stopped where it reached the edge of the tape.

There was no one on the ninth step, and no tape. She passed it without stopping.

A coat hung over the iron railing. It was not hers; it had been there since yesterday. Now one of its sleeves was wound round with tape, and the cuff had been twisted into a single strand.

On the bottom three steps the dancer stood, her hands hanging at her sides, her knuckles a little pale. The cardboard still lay in front of her feet, with four marks pressed into it: two knees and two palms. One corner of a sheet of cardboard had curled up and was pinned down by the edge of the tape. Water had gathered in the marks. It was clear, and it reflected the sky. In the water the disc showed only a small piece, its edge a ring of pale violet, and the black mouth lay below it, a thin line.

The tape crept over from the edge of the cardboard and wound round the dancer’s right foot, nine turns, and round her left, five. The dancer’s eyes were on the stone. Her lashes were short, and one of them stuck up; she did not press it down.

The man in the grey coat stood on the far side of the tape, a card holder held against his chest, its slots facing out. The slots were empty. The clip was silver, with a scratch along one edge. His leather shoes had been polished very bright, and a few drops of mist had settled on their toes. He was not looking at her. He was looking at that beam. His hand was still held out, and he had not lowered it.

Swan crouched down. She did not look at the beam first. She found one edge of the tape, parted it with her thumb and forefinger, and tore a gap there. The tape was wide, and as it tore it gave a faint sticky sound. She peeled it outward, ring by ring, counting all the while.

When she reached the dancer’s right foot, she noticed that the toe of that shoe had a hole, like the one in her own right shoe. The hole was black, with white threads curling at its edges. Through it showed a corner of paper, grey-white, folded four times. The writing on the paper was inside the folds, and she could not see it.

The laces on the right shoe were wound one more turn than those on the left. They went over the instep and were tied above the ankle.

She knew this way of tying them. She had tied them this way since she was seventeen.

That right foot stood on the stone, and its toe touched the ground a fraction ahead of the left, a very small margin early. She looked at it. She said nothing.

Beyond the bottom step, the café’s roller shutter had been pulled half down. There was no tape on the door. The light inside was white. The chair by the doorway had been moved half a step closer to the socket, and it had not been moved back. The air at the doorway carried a smell of burnt coffee, faint. It came out through the gap in puffs, and each puff was pushed down again by the mist.

On the step beside the socket stood a paper cup. Steam was still rising from its rim. The steam climbed into the mist and was lost from sight. No one picked it up.

The speaker stood on the bottom step, leaning against the stone. There was a split in the speaker cone, and the edges of the split had not yet gathered dust. Round the handle was wound beige tape, three turns, each turn covering half of the one before. There was no red on that tape.

A hand came out of the doorway and pulled the roller shutter down a little further. On the forearm was an old white burn scar, gone flat now. The hand withdrew, and only a line of white light was left in the gap.

Only then did she look up.

※

On the iron railing, one stretch of tape had not been wound round, leaving a gap just wide enough for a person to slip through sideways.

She stepped through the gap. Her left pointe shoe went in first, without a sound. The old trainer on her right foot came in after it, brushing the edge of the tape, and gave a dull thud.

She looked down at the toe of her left shoe. There was a trace of red on it, powder from the tape. The powder was very fine and would not blow off. It would have to fall off on its own.

She looked back once. The dancer was still standing on the bottom three steps. The tape on the dancer’s left foot had not moved; it was still five turns, round the ankle. Her right foot was free now, and her toes moved once, then stopped. The gap behind Swan had been mended with another length of tape. Through that tape everything outside could still be seen, but the edge of each thing had a touch of red: the man in the grey coat, the pigeons on the stone steps, and the line of white light in the café doorway, which fell onto the steam from the paper cup and picked out a very fine white line.

The air inside the railing seemed to have been swapped out.

Outside, the mist was wet and clung to the face. The air here was dry and did not cling. Breathed in, it was cool, with no fishy smell of river water and no smell of tape. When her soles came down, the sound was dry, and none of it spread outward.

The stone steps had turned into mosaic slabs, one after another, their patterns symmetrical and each slab’s edges worn very round. The mosaic was white in places, and in others a very deep grey, and the deep grey slabs were cold. A thin layer of grey dust lay in the joints, and one swipe of a shoe sole cleared it away. The steps were gone, so she no longer had to count them. The exhibition hall rose up around her. The walls were white. They rose into the white, and no top could be seen. A row of lamps ran across the ceiling, their shades white, showing only a rim. The lamps at the foot of the walls came on one by one. Narrow beams fell from their shades, lighting only the exhibits, not the people. The lamps made no sound.

The ninth lamp shone on an empty display case. White cloth lay inside it, and nothing was on the cloth.

She moved three steps to the left. The lamp did not follow her. The lamp that lit her was off.

She counted from her own feet to the middle of the hall, with fourteen mosaic slabs in between. The mosaic pattern was a cross. The centre of the cross sat at the exact middle of each slab, and every centre had a small dark dot. The dot in the centre of the third slab was sunken, with a grain of dust lying in it.

She counted the things in the exhibition hall. One statue. Eleven empty frames, in three widths. Six rows of audience seating, twelve chairs to a row. Three display cases, one of them empty. Thirty-two lamps, twenty of them lit. Six labels on the floor, all blank. One exit, the gap she had come through, and the gap had already been mended.

The statue, bound in red tape, stood on its plinth, and the light picked out the folds in its cloth. The folds the tape had pressed were flattened, leaving only a white mark. The narrow beam rested on its face, only briefly, then moved away to light the words on the plinth. The words were carved, and dust lay in the carving; when the light went in, the dust lit up as a thin line. The statue’s face was turned towards the door, and the door was shut.

The empty frames hung on the wall. Their insides were still white, and the red tape round the edges caught the light, wound from the top edge to the bottom. On the edge of one frame were four small holes, left by hanging nails, and all four were at the same height.

The audience chairs were lined up neatly, and all of them were empty. Their legs were iron, and they made no sound on the mosaic. Each chair back was wound with red tape, all at the same height, level with the shoulders.

Names were carved into the wall, in cold gold. The letters were all the same size, and the lines were spaced evenly. The top row was a shade shallower than the rest, and she could not make out whose names they were. She counted one wall: eighteen. She did not count the other three.

The exhibition hall had two doors, both iron, neither with a handle. The glass in the doors was white, and it reflected nothing. In the middle of the hall stood four pillars, white, with no writing on them. Along the foot of the wall ran a white skirting board, its joints all aligned, not one section out of place.

At the far end of the exhibition hall, the Splendid Academician was frozen in a showpiece pose. He held his chin high, and even the dust had stopped.

His wig was bone white, with six curls on the left and six on the right. Each curl was wrapped solid in bright red bureaucratic tape, right back to the ear, the same number of turns on every curl. His face lay in the shadow of the wig, a patch of white, and she could not make out what was on that white. His body was built of stone, and leaves of cold gold showed between the joins. Several cracks ran across his body. From a distance they were fine white lines, not widening and not closing. His right hand was raised to his chest, fingers together, tips up, wrist straight. His left hand held the sceptre, its shaft resting against his left shoulder. His body was very straight; not one part of it was bent. His shoes were stone, and their toes were square.

The head of the sceptre was a book, half open, also made of leaves of cold gold. It stayed half open, and it could never close again. Each leaf bore a small number, except for one leaf at the edge of the pages, which had none. He stood, and his chest did not move. His two feet were together, toes forward, not one degree out.

The narrow beam did not reach him. He stood on the dark side, only two steps from the middle of the hall.

He stepped forward. His stone-clad heel struck the mosaic, and a ring of grit fell away from it. The grit rolled outward and came to rest at the edge of the middle slab. The grit was cold. She did not go to pick it up.

His steps were even, each one the same length. By the time she had counted his second step, he was standing in the middle of the hall.

Her breathing counted: three beats in, five out.

The sceptre came down once, lightly. A control ripple went out, and wherever it passed, every exhibit was bound once more, tighter. The seams of the mosaic lit up one by one, then dimmed again. Where the ripple had passed, a thin film of grey dust rose into the air, then fell back and came to rest on the slabs. The red tape on the statue tightened with the same sound. The edges of the empty frames tightened too, one after another, all at the same pitch. On the backs of the audience chairs, the red tape wound one more turn tighter, and the chairs did not move.

The ripple reached the front of her feet.

The ripple touched her pointe shoe, and the satin did not crease. When it reached the old trainer on her right foot, the stain on the upper that would not wash out lit up first, then dimmed. The fine line of light on the inside of her calf flared too, then faded.

The flat ring on her left wrist opened halfway. Its pearl-white scales met the ripple and turned back, one by one, until the third scale stopped. The edge of the ring touched the cuff of her cardigan and made a single sound.

The feather piece that the ripple touched pressed down a little, then rose again.

Her weight shifted back a little, but her feet did not move. The line of her shoulders under the stiff collar held taut and did not loosen.

She let out a long breath. It went on until her ribs settled back one by one, and her weight came down with them onto her right foot. The old trainer on the right planted first. Only then did the pointe shoe on the left settle.

The ripple drew back. The seams of the mosaic went dark one by one, and the last to go was the seam beside her foot.

She stood up straight. When she spoke, her chin hardly moved, and the sibilants in every word came out clean.

“Another building that won’t let anyone dance.”

His voice made no echo. Each word landed where it belonged, and it ended close against her ear, and then it was gone.

“Culture is defined by us.”

She did not answer. She looked at the names on the wall, then at his wig, counting the six curls on the left first and then the six on the right.

※

Her practice cardigan had a shorter left cuff. She had cut it herself. The piece she cut off had been left on the steps at the theatre entrance, and she had not gone back for it.

The Splendid Academician walked forward again. He set one foot on each slab, landing every step at the centre of the cross, and crossed nine slabs. This time no grit fell. He stopped at the exact centre of the fifth slab. His heel was not a hair’s breadth out from any of the steps before it.

Her hand hung open at her side, five fingers flat, the tips drooping a little. She had learned this shape of hand at ten years old. The split in the callus at the web of her hand had scabbed over, and the edges of the scab were lifting. She did not touch it.

She counted the beats in her head. One, two, three. Her fingers tapped three times, lightly, against the outside of her thigh. On the third beat she had already worked out where her left foot would land.

Her right foot came in a very little early, and that was hers. Her left foot came half a beat late, and that was hers too. The half beat between the two shoes was one she had kept for herself.

On her left pointe shoe, the satin ribbons crossed up to the calf. She had tied the knot herself, and it lay flat. The edges of the ribbons had frayed, and she had not cut them.

The Splendid Academician’s gaze did not fall on her. He was looking at the row of empty frames on the wall.

“Taste is adjudicated by us.”

She looked at the empty frames too. There was nothing in them. The wall behind them was white, with no trace of nails. The four small holes at the edge of that frame were all at the same height. The frame edges were thin; a fingernail could lift a little white paint from them. She did not scrape. The hanging nails were iron, and every nail head had a horizontal groove across it.

She counted the widths of the frames. The narrowest kind was exactly the width of her palm. The widest was a stretch wider than her two hands spread apart. The distance between every two frames was the same.

She drew her left foot back an inch, heel lifting, then set it down again on exactly the same point of the mosaic.

※

The Splendid Academician raised the sceptre, its tip aimed at her right foot. He did not so much as glance at it. He only pointed.

Her right foot was in the old trainer. The hole in its toe was still there, and the corner of grey-white paper still showed through it.

She said, “This shoe, I won’t swap.”

She said it flatly, her sibilants clean, not one word drawn out.

Her words stopped there. The Splendid Academician did not take up her words. The sceptre hung in mid-air. The pause was brief, short enough to last only the length of one consonant. Then the tip slowly moved away from her right foot, across to the front of her left pointe shoe, and pressed down on the mosaic.

He drew the tip across towards her right foot. As he drew the line, his eyes stayed on the wall ahead. A shallow groove was left in the slab. It was as deep as a fingernail, its edges very neat, as if it had been carved and then trodden flat. White dust soon gathered in the groove.

Her right foot moved forward one millimetre. That millimetre was early.

She did not step over the line. Her left pointe shoe did not move either. Her right hand was at her side. Its five fingers opened, then drew back in, and the tips touched the outside of her thigh without pressing down.

She did not look down at the line. She looked at his hand, which held the sceptre and did not move.

The line stopped outside the upper of her right shoe. The two shoes were not a pair, so the line fell between them. Beside the line, the grit had piled into a tiny slope, one side of it dry.

When the tip was drawn back, a little white dust fell from the edge of the groove onto the toe of her right shoe and stopped at the rim of the hole. The white dust carried the corner of paper with it, and the paper slid out through the hole and dropped into a seam of the stone. His heel did not move, and no grit fell.

The line was twenty-two centimetres long, about the length of her left pointe shoe. She had measured it by eye: a span and a half. A span and a half was her right hand spread open, from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the middle finger, plus half a finger.

He drew the sceptre back to his side. It stood upright at his left hand, its tip an inch above the floor. The leaf at the edge of the pages, the one with no number, faced her. Her left foot did not move. The laces of her right shoe were still wound above the ankle, and they had not come loose.

For the first time his gaze lifted from the line and came to rest on her face.

“You don’t belong.”

He read it out flatly, biting into every consonant, as if reading out a panel’s review, and passed judgement.