Hard to Escape

Chapter 20

I returned home in a daze. On the way, I received a call from Yin Li. In a voice that was just as tender as before, he told me somewhat helplessly that he was afraid he'd have to stay the night at S city. He couldn't come home in time.

"Be good, tomorrow morning I'll bring back S city's specialty pastries for you. Go to sleep earlier tonight." Grasping the phone, for an instant I felt a desire to throw up my arms in defeat. I only wanted to start hysterically crying into the phone like an unreasonable child. In their youth, even the most heaviest of thoughts could all be left behind after a round of tears.

But what humans are most helpless to is the fact that they must grow up, so I had no choice but to suppress those emotions like an adult would. Holding back the immense darkness in my heart, I told him, "Mhm, okay." Then I lifted my head back up to face alone that large, empty road, and that ice-cold house, and thought of what my next step should be like as a mature and steady adult.

I mechanically took those old news clippings that Frank gave me and read every word from beginning to end. Those papers were already aged yellow, and most were from the Arts and Culture sections of the mainstream French newspapers. The oldest was dated to a day eight years ago, it read, "Head of the top ballet troupe, leading master of ballet and greatest instructor of her time, Madame Taylor, has accepted a pupil for the first time in ten years: An Asian dancer, Alicia Tang". The article was accompanied by Madame Taylor's evaluation of her student, "She was born to be a dancer. I have the utmost confidence that one day, she will surpass me, leaving us all far behind."

The most recent news was from a year ago, regarding Alicia's disappearance. The paper added that she'd just finished signing a contract with the ballet troupe. A month later she was to formally become the troupe's lead dancer, the first foreigner to have this accomplishment.

I stared blankly at the woman in the paper, her head tilted elegantly to the side with a cold and lofty expression, feeling as if I was staring at some stranger who was completely unrelated to me.

Even with things like this, I couldn't remember anything.

The amount of news clippings in the package Frank gave me was very small, the majority was video recordings. The date of the recording was written on the back of each. I carelessly picked one out of the bunch.

From the DVD player, a free and unrestrained scene flowed out of the camera lens. It zoomed into close-up shot of a face that looked identical mine. The girl had her hair coiled on top of her head in a bun and she wore a black leotard. She turned and smiled faintly at the camera that was positioned close to her, and then sat down to put on a pair of pointe shoes.

She looked to be exactly as tall as me, but her whole body was slimmer than mine and her muscles were clearly defined. As I watched, she rose up to balance on the tip of her toes with a relaxed and effortless expression, then tested her shoes against the floor and stretched her legs. And then she began to jump and land, jump and land, then spin, spinning endlessly in the circle, with the only sound being that of her pointe shoes against the floor. In a room lined with mirrors and soaked in sunlight, she danced like a ray of light, her steps unhurried, full of beauty and strength. That lifted neck was snowy white, bent in a gentle arc full of grace, seeming just like a swan about to take off into the sky.

"Ballet isn't just a kind of dance, it's an attitude towards life. Standing tiptoed on the ground, you can reach a height higher than you could before, and the gaze with which you look at the world should naturally also be higher. Being a ballet dancer, you must forever live in the highest manner that you can achieve. Our lives are prideful and noble.

"When spinning, don't look around at everything. Always remember, keep your eyes focused on a target. Only by maintaining your focus on something can you keep your center of gravity stable. Your desires and dreams all originate from this one target, which is ballet. No matter how alluring the outside world seems, you still can only have this one important target: to immerse yourself in your dance. You are the dance itself."