Fragility

The drive to ballet was silent and this struck me as odd. In usual times, Jack and I would talk and laugh, offer words of wisdom to each other, strike up nonsense political conversations, joke about on-goings, put my day in better spirits. But today, Jack seemed melancholy, kept his eyes firmly on the road.

"Jack, are you alright?" I asked.

"Of course, miss," he said quickly.

"You don't seem alright."

"Thank you for the concern, miss," he replied, his eyes, the edges crinkled with a smile, appearing in the rearview mirror. "Ain't nothing to concern yourself with, anyhow."

When we arrived at the home, a large country estate, Jack parked on the curb and helped me out before leaving me there without another word. I watched, mildly confused, lifting my hand up to wave, as the black car turned around and continued down the road from whence we came. The dust settled, I walked up the small path to the front door and rapped on it twice. A moment later, the great door swung open.

Miss Clara -- a thin blonde with green eyes, outfitted in a simple blue dress with flat shoes -- greeted me with a smile. "Good morning, Vee. Come in, come in, it's quite cold." She ushered me into the and shut the door, before walking beside me down the lavish hallway.

The matriarch of the home, Miss Clara, made a nice enough living teaching the art of ballet to the young ladies of England's most regarded families, that she could afford a vast and lovely space to live and teach within.

We crossed another corridor and came before the room that she used for teaching. She pushed open the door and I instantly saw five chairs lined up close to the western wall, facing the large mirrored wall on the east, cut in half by a long barre. An ancient phonograph was set upon a small cabinet in the corner of the room.

The teacher went along to pick the proper record for today's lesson and I sat at the farthest left chair, savoring the quiet shifting of the records.

"Hello!" came from the doorway and echoed about the room, causing Miss Clara and I to jump. We both turned to find my best friend, Lilka Mads, in the doorway, a serene smile on her face.

"Good morning, Miss Clara!" Lily -- as I called her -- trilled as she skipped into the room and removed her coat, dropping it and the rest of her things on the chair by mine. She looked disheveled, but still so lovely. Her auburn hair, usually kept up in a bun, cascaded down her back, the front pieces pulled back and weaved into a braid tied with a pink ribbon. There was a run in the back of her tights and a slight tear at the hem of her dress. Her black shoes were scuffed and unpolished. Her normally clean coat possessed grass stains on the elbows. Should I have went out as she had, there was no telling what consequence I would face. I envied her.

"Good morning, Lily," the teacher replied, grinning at her. "The others will be here shortly." And with that, she left the room, leaving the door open a crack.

"Hullo, you," Lily said, wrapping her pale, cold arms around my shoulders and kissing me on the cheek. I smiled at her. "Hello, Lily."

"You look glum," Lily mentioned. She sat down and fished her toe shoes from her bag before dropping it on the floor.

I looked at her -- lovely, perfect Lily -- and questioned, "Glum?"

She removed her shoes. There was a hole in her tights where her big toe was. "Yes."

"I didn't sleep well last night," I mumbled, taking off my shoes -- polished, free of scuffs -- and setting them under the chair. I took my toe shoes from my bag.

"Neither did I." She bent the sole of her shoes forward and back. "The air-raid?"

"Precisely." Even at the calmest of times, -- a rare sunny day, learning the steps to Gisele in this very room -- I would still worry if by chance, the keen wailing that we'd all gotten used to in the nights would migrate also to the day.

She shuddered outwardly. "I abhor them. I wish all of this mess would just end."

"The entirety of the world wishes the same, I'm sure," I said.

"Anyways, come home and sleep, then. I'm sure His Majesty--" here, she gave the title an extra cruel push "--will understand."

"You know he won't," I said, crisscrossing the ties at the backs of my ankles. "He never does."

"It's not like you have anything more important to do, do you?"

"Not exactly."

"His behavior toward you is positively sickening," Lily huffed, slipping her feet into her toe shoes and tying them to perfection in fantastic speed. She lowered her voice then, saying hotly, "He does nothing to comfort you or make you feel at home; it's been a blasted year. You're his niece, for Heaven's sake, not a dog occupying another room."

It's been a year -- already? It felt longer, being away from my paternal grandparents, from Denmark, where I was truly happy for the first time in my life. But that ended when Uncle dragged me back to England. He left me in the threshold of my new room, new light, new world, old memories in a suitcase, and everything I hated to think of came flooding back.

He tried very hard to make me happy; that lasted for a little while. He threw out my old Danish suitcase and bought me enough clothes and shoes to fill three armoires. He bought me dolls -- despite forgetting that I hadn't played with dolls since I was six -- and jewelry that was far too old for me. He gave me a comfortable sized room on the second floor and made it into something out of a fairytale. He bought me ballet uniforms and toe shoes and sent me to the best ballet school he could find at the time. He threw me a large enough sixteenth birthday party that had the papers talking for months; the amount of gifts that I'd been sent from around the world took me weeks to sort through.

He tried very hard to please me and I tried very hard to reciprocate. I suppose we both got tired of the stupid games.

"A nap sounds lovely right now, doesn't it?" I said, stretching out my ankles and somewhat twisting away from the truth of Lily's words.

"You're telling me," she said. "I could pass out right now and I'd be wholly grateful for it." She began unraveling the braid at the back of her head and said, "Say, I've got a question for you."

"Ask away."

"Papa's hosting a party in three weeks," Lily informed me as she pulled some hair pins out of her bag. "You should come."

"If I could come," I said, looking to her.

Lily frowned. "Another party and you'll leave me alone with all those pigeons?"

"I'm sorry," I said. "You know how he feels about parties."

"He feels very strongly about a multitude of things, doesn't he?" she asked, pulling her hair up and twisting it loosely around itself as she stuck the pins into her hair in different angles.

"Parties are one thing he feels most strongly about," I said.

"Yet he throws them left and right."

"He's allowed to."

"He doesn't let you do a damn thing, does he? Does it give him pleasure to know that he's suffocating his own niece?" she said out of the side of her mouth, holding a pin between her teeth.

It gives him pleasure in other manners. Uncle ever rarely allowed me to attend any sort of function, be it with him in attendance or without. I wondered how I would go about even beginning to ask him to attend. He was not aware that I had any friends here. He had taken it upon himself to isolate me from the world.

"I want to go, Lily," I said, sighing. "But I doubt he'll let me."

"Then at least attempt to ask him," she said, turning on her side to face me. "Who knows? He might allow you!"

"I don't know," I said, as a sickening worry began to fill me. There would be consequences of this, a trade, tit-for-tat, an eye for an eye.

"It'll be fun! You need to get out of that stuffy chateau for a while," she said. "You're starting to look gray. It's unhealthy."

"Thank you, Lilka," I said monotonously. "But I shall take your advice and I'll..." I trailed off for a moment, rapidly calculating the multiple ways that this proposition could go wrong. "I'll ask him."

"I'll see to it personally that you'll have a good time!" she said.

"I'm equally curious and afraid of what that entails."

Just then, footfalls sounded in the halls and a few moments later, the cracked door opened fully to reveal the goddess of our small class, the blonde Annabelle Winter, a Parliament peer's daughter, and her two friends: Dolores Studwick, a tiny fairy with black hair and olive skin, and Lenora Albert, a baron's niece, Annabelle's carbon copy. All were dressed in the proper uniform of our tiny troupe: a sleeveless cream shift dress, stockings, hair done up in a bun.

"Hi, Annabelle!" Lily said with fake sincerity in her voice.

"Hello," Annabelle said, ice dripping from her words. There was no hiding that Annabelle and her friends didn't enjoy Lily's company; frankly, they hated her. Dolores and Lenora looked at each other worriedly; neither of the three wanted to sit next to Lily, simply because she was Danish -- an outsider -- and Jewish; Lily was far too loud and obnoxious for their taste. Should they sit next to her, they would catch a disease and perish. It seemed like they hadn't heard of moving their chairs a considerable distance.

"Who gets to sit by the Bear Jew today?" Annabelle said loud enough for Lily to hear. Lily only snorted in response -- she claimed in the past that she'd heard it all. But still, Annabelle's words boiled my blood.

"Sit next to the bear, get bitten," Lily said, holding her hand out and studying her nails. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Is that a threat?" Annabelle snarled. Her friends chorused a low oooh. "I'll have you know I can have you thrown--"

"I know who you are, Annabelle," Lily said. "Mustn't bore me with the details, given that I don't actually care."

"You should respect those above you, you filthy Jew," Annabelle retorted. That was the last straw.

"You talk an awful lot of rubbish, Annabelle. Please shut your mouth." Before I could control myself, I had spoken and the souls inhabiting room were as silent as a grave. Annabelle's blue eyes flashed in my direction and I was quite sure I would turn into stone. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," I said, my tone as icy as hers. "Shut up."

Annabelle laughed, her cronies following suit. "And who the hell are you to tell me what to do?"

Lily grabbed my arm and whispered, "Don't bother. It's fine."

"At the very least, you could show some decency and apologize for what you've told Lily," I said, ignoring her and rising from my seat.

"Oh, good Lord, this is rich," Annabelle said, wiping an invisible tear from her eye. She turned her stone gaze to me again. "Who are you anyways, mouse? The maid's daughter? A scholarship student? Clara give you a uniform and a spot here 'cause she feels sorry for you?"

I clenched my jaw. "For the same reason she gave you yours."

Annabella laughed. "A room full of gentry and Clara gives permission for a mouse and a bear to play along! I should've known: two undesirables standing up for each other." A smirk came to her pretty face. "My grandfather would love to hear this; he donates to this circus, of course. He'd have you two out of here in record time. We don't need anymore trash littering this place." Dolores and Lenora snickered behind their fingers at Annabelle's words.

"Go ahead and tell him," I said. I mimicked her when I said, "I'd love to see what he does."

"Oh, shut the hell up, you whiny little primadonna," Lily said to Annabelle, and yanked me back into the seat. "Quit your crying. Nobody wants to hear it."

Lily was Annabelle's target once again. "What did you call me?"

"Whiny? A primadonna? Little? Those words describe you perfectly, I find," Lily said, her lips curling into a smile. "Run along now, Miss Diva, and leave us trash alone."

The color of Annabelle's face was that of a heart attack. "You'll regret that you've ever said anything to me, pig."

Lily rolled her eyes in the blonde's direction. "Are you done yet? Off with you, now." With some semblance of satisfaction, Annabelle and her friends went along their merry way dressing out, pursing their lips and fixing their hair in the large mirrors, while the fizzle in Lily and I had not yet died.

"I said it was fine," Lily muttered, scratching the toe of her shoe against the floor.

"But it wasn't," I said. "Do you like to hear her call you those names?"

"They're stupid," Lily said, pushing a stray hair behind her ear.

"They are," I said. "But that does not give the right to treat you in this manner."

"Here's a piece of advice from a borgerlig like me, Højhed," Lily said, rising from her seat. "You show no weakness -- ever. That's how people twist it against you."

"Papa would tell me the same," I said, smiling.

"Then we are not so different after all."

--

At the end of our five hour lesson, we were released upon the world. Lily and I took to flopping down on the grass, staring up at the grey clouds overhead and talking about nonsense while we waited for our relatives to fetch us.

"So he looks at me with these big brown eyes," Lily continued her tale of her most recent meeting with a man on the streets of Lynn. She was going to buy a new dress, she said, when a soldier stopped her. "And tells me -- decideret, mind you -- in this stupid voice, 'I'm sorry, ma'am, but you're under arrest!'"

"You hadn't done a thing!"

"No, my love, I've done nothing," she said. "I look at him, and I could've easily broken him in two. 'Under what charges?' I say."

"For being an absolute bombshell," I whispered under my breath, for she had neglected to remember that she told me this the day after it happened.

"'For being an absolute bombshell!'" she cackled. "A weapon of mass destruction!"

"You could level London!" I said, for Lily was really the epitome of loveliness.

"Oh, well, let's not throw it that far," she said, rising to her elbows. "But if we must..."

"You know we must," I said, looking to her. "I agree with this soldier boy. Have you seen the last of him?"

"A few days ago," she said. "After he took his hand out from under my skirt."

"So quickly?" This was a stretch, even for Lily.

"He was through in a moment, darling. Faster than I," she said easily. "Don't feel too sorry for him."

"That is," I started, clearing my throat. "Not what I meant, but...what an achievement."

"Oh, darling," she said, laughing. "You meant the other thing -- why, there was a week in between our meetings. He sounded like he was practically aching for me."

"How bad an ache?"

"'The worst!' he said," Lily replied.

"Don't you get bored of these dalliances?"

"Sometimes," she said. "It depends on the man."

"What of this one?"

"I'll take the knee once more," she said. "And leave it at that. My jaw is starting to ache."

I burst out laughing. "You're horrible!"

"Me?!" she squeaked. "Why?!"

"You'll leave the poor boy hanging?"

"You mean as I usually do?" she said. "I want to have some fun -- and now I've had my fun. Anyways, I should find you someone."

"Oh, Gods, no," I said. Uncle would have a fit.

"Do you not trust me?" Lilka said, making her voice into a whimper.

"With my life, Lilka! But..."

"Let your Fairy God-Lilka do some magic, then," she said. "Conjure up a count or a prince!"

"Perhaps a prince," I said, my face reddening.

"Perhaps!" she said. "Well, it'll be a challenge, for I've never met any princes." We both dissolved into giggles. After a while, a red car -- Lily's grandfather, Leon's -- stopped on the curb. Lily pulled me to my feet and practically dragged me down the hill.

"Afternoon, Far," Lily said as she opened the door.

"Hello, Mr. Mads," I said.

"Hello, Vee, Lilka," the gray-haired man asked. He had kindly eyes and an intimidating frame. I saw a bit of him in Lily; the eyes, the demeanor, that stubbornness, the unconcern for the opinion of others. She was my perfect opposite -- and I always thought that was why Mr. Mads and my grandfather, who were former military friends, thought that she and I would be close. It'd been four years since Lily and I first met and I still considered her my dearest -- only -- friend.

"You're looking quite well, Vee," Mr. Mads said, smiling.

"You as well," I said, grinning.

"Oh, yes," he chuckled and jerked his chin in Lily's direction. "She keeps me on my toes."

"I love you, too, Far." She slid in and didn't close the door after her. "We're going to eat," Lily informed me, moving so there was enough space for me as well. "Come with us."

"You're always welcome with us," Mr. Mads said.

"I'd love to," I said, curling my nails into the palm of my hand so I wouldn't say something I shouldn't. "But not today, I'm afraid. Thank you for the offer."

"Oh, well, the offer still stands for the next time, dearest," Mr. Mads said.

"Next time, I'll take you up on it, I promise," I said. Lily shut the door behind her and pouted at me through the open window. "You wound me."

"Not too badly, I hope," I said.

"I shall survive, min elskede," she said, and leaned out the window to kiss me on the cheek. She whispered before she sank back into her seat, "Ask him."

I hid a smile behind my teeth. "You two enjoy yourself." I watched -- mildly jealous -- as they both waved at me and drove off down the road.

I breathed out and sank back into the grass.

How in the hell was even going to begin asking him about the party? I had very few options and much less to offer in return.

"I'm going to a party in three weeks," I could say defiantly, looking him straight in the eyes that were exactly like mine; the woe of blood relation. Stand my ground. He could look and simply nod. Not ask questions.

Theoretically, this would never be. Realistically, this would never be. In my world, this would never be.

I wasn't alone with my thoughts for long. The familiar black car pulled up to the curb; swallowing my feelings and shouldering my bag, I made my way down the small path toward the car. An unfamiliar man -- a young black uniform with blonde hair, blue eyes -- exited the vehicle then and I instantly stopped.

"Oh," I gasped, embarrassed. "I-I'm sorry, sir. I thought you were--"

The man smiled. The gesture made me uneasy. "Someone else?"

"Yes, sir," I said, taking a step back. "My apologies."

"Your uncle sent me to fetch you," he told me. I could fully now hear his accent: German. I didn't believe him for a shred of a second. I wanted to run. "My name is Paul Bohler," he said. "The new driver. And you, I presume, are Vee."

Driver? "We employ a driver, sir."

"That old geezer?" he scoffed. "He was let go this morning. He said a few...choice words to His Majesty and was kicked out. Funny, it was shortly after he dropped you off here."

I didn't even have a reason to believe him, not for a moment. My heart hammered in my chest as I said, "I'm afraid there's been a mistake--"

"Don't fathom the idea of running, Princess," he told me sternly, cutting me off. "I'm a very good runner, and should you even attempt, it wouldn't be very long till I drag you back kicking and screaming." He opened the car door and said, "Let's make this quick and painless, if you please."

I had no other choice -- running was a farce and attempting to negotiate was too. Frightened by his words, I slipped into the car and Paul shut the door behind me with a sharp crack.