The Last Performance of Lady Zunie

My Great Grandmother, Sofia Zunie, is easily the most important person in my life. She has seen one hundred and eighteen years and has been through so much in her long life. She was born in Russia, in Moskow actually, in nineteen o' four. She was a member of the Russian Ballet until she left for America in nineteen twenty-four. She danced and taught ballet once she established herself in America, and now she supports the arts in her old age and helps instructers in getting the most from their dancers.

I've been living with her since I was sixteen, my parents having died in a car crash. During that time, I've heard many stories about her life with the New York Ballet, the Chicago Ballet, and her adventures as her troupe toured the new world that was so enrapturing to a young girl fresh from the harsh Russian landscape. Of Russia, though, she would say nothing. She wouldn't talk about her first twenty years of life. It was as if she couldn't bring herself to relive that part of her, and no matter how I prodded, she refused to tell me anything.

At least until last night.

I woke up around midnight, my bladder bursting. On my way back to bed, I noticed my Great Grandmother was sitting in the living room. She had a roaring fire built in the grate, something I was curious about since all the wood was in the backyard, and she was sitting close enough that I was afraid she might go up in flames. I ran in, reaching for the water bucket, but her wrinkled old hand reached out to stop me.

"Don't. I like the flames. It reminds me of my girlhood."

I sat down with her, afraid she might fall in, as she sat and stared at the dancing flames.

"They dance as I used to when I was a little girl."

I was quiet for a moment, her voice spidery and quiet.

"When you were in Russia?" I finally asked.

She nodded, "I studied under Madame Jenese Gruttieve, one of Russia's finest instructors. She claimed to have performed for The Romanovs in their day, though she never said which Romanovs. She was old when I met her, but she molded my young body into the dancer I am today. Madam Gruttieve was responsible for training many great dancers, most going on to dance for the Moscow Ballet, but she was old. People wanted younger dancers to teach their children, teachers who could still demonstrate the technique without falling on their palsied backsides. My mother was no fool. She had been trained by Madam Gruttieve and wanted her daughter to receive the same training. I went on to dance for her troupe for sixteen years, eventually becoming a teacher in her studio. They called me Lady Zunie when I took the stage. I was the darling of the ballet in my season, and my star seemed on the rise."

She paused then, her eyes drinking in the flames as she stared it down.

"At least until the fire."

She began to tell me her story, and as I watched the fire dancing in her glassy eyes, it seemed like I could see the movie of her life playing out just for me.

"The studio had a legacy of excellence, but that brought us in very little money. Madam Gruttieve owed money to some very bad people, people who didn't like unsettled debts. They had offered trades for more time, wanting her girls for the usual things that brutes want a young girl for, but Madam Gruttieve protected us from them.

Ah, but these were not the sort of men to be balked. They blocked us from getting work, and Madam Gruttieve was getting desperate. She was still making money from the lessons she taught, but her students were also becoming less and less. Some of it was the men she owed money to, but some of it was also her age. Parents appreciate a teacher who can demonstrate their craft, and Madam Gruttieve was old. Her legs were gouty and unsteady, and her gate was, even then, not so good. My friend Louise and I did most of the teaching, but we were losing girls to the other Troupes. With these men blocking us from getting work, we had little money to pay the rent on the studio, let alone her debt.

But, life offers opportunities sometimes, cruel as they may be.

Madam Gruttieve received an invitation one day.

An invitation to take part in Vladimir Stropocauf's latest ballet.

Stropocauf was a genius in Moscow, though his performances were often as experimental as they were outrageous. I remember hearing that one such show had been held in the forest by night, all the dancers performing naked in the snow. Many of them had suffered hypothermia, and a few had even had some frostbite. Still, the show had been heavily attended, and the profits were said to be substantial.

Madam Gruttieve said that the price he had offered for just three of her dancers would pay off her debt and then some, and Stropocauf had asked for Lady Zunie specifically.

"I have never heard of the performance, but it is highly anticipated and could only raise your star higher."

She chose Louise and Georgette to accompany me, her three best dancers. We were excited to be in one of Stropocauf's shows. They were often odd and sometimes dangerous, but many of those chosen to be in his performances went on to have great success in the Moscow Ballet and beyond. Rehearsals were scheduled for the week to come, and we practiced in our free time so that we wouldn't disappoint Madam Gruttieve.

We arrived early to the designated practice space, only to find that it was being held at Vladimir Stropacauf's estates.

We were shown into a large receiving room to wait, several other girls already present. We spoke with them for a time, and the other girls arrived as the appointed time grew closer. Finally, Mr. Stropacauf arrived to speak with us personally, and the room grew instantly still. He was dressed in a luxurious dinner coat, a soft pair of pinstriped pants adorning his thick legs, and he looked like a sultan in a children's story. His caliph-like slippers were pointed, elvish in their design and softness, and he seemed to exude charm and affluence.

"I am glad that so many of you have come to join my little production. I have called thirty of you here, but I will only retain fifteen. Fifteen of the best will take part in my production of Moths Aflame! I look forward to seeing what all of you bring to the table, especially the enchanting Lady Zunie."

He winked at me then, seeming to pick me from the crowd, and I felt honored to be noticed by someone so affluent.

What a fool I was.

The following two weeks encompassed the most demanding audition of my life. Stropacauf put us through our paces from dawn till dusk, sometimes making us dance and rehearse for hours on end. He cut five in the first hour, two others before the day was over. He made us dance naked on the first day, watching us as our bodies moved and making notes of where we could improve. After the third day, we were allowed to wear our leotards, and he made us run through the woods like deer on a hunt. He cut those who didn't run gracefully enough, another four girls, and as we bent double, gasping for air in his backyard, he smiled wolfishly.

"You do not disappoint, dear Lady Zunie. I knew you would be the one to give my performance fire."

It took four more days of grueling drills to ferret out the last four, and Georgette wept as she was sent away on the last day of trials.

After that, the true work began.

We were fitted for costumes, the fabric gauzy and the material slightly oily. It sat against the skin like mud and made my flesh crawl. It felt greasy, and Louise told me that it made her break out in a rash. As we began to dance in them, I could hear the way it grated against my skin. It made me think of sand or perhaps burlap, but it was always soft to the touch as I removed it. It makes sense now, but by the time I figured it out, it was far too late.

We practiced and rehearsed for the next month, Stropacauf's critical eye always upon us.

When the night of the show arrived, we were all aflutter with anticipation.

We peeked through the curtains as they filled in, women in furs and men in suits. All of them wore mysterious lacquered masks, and they looked ghastly as they leered at the stage. They sat like ghosts amidst the low lights, watching with anticipation. In our costumes, we resembled moths. In my stomach, it felt like a swarm was swirling in an anxious cloud. I felt like it was my time on stage again, and I had to remind myself that this was no different than any other performance.

When Stropacauf called us all to him, we gathered for his final instruction.

"Good luck tonight, my beauties. Tonight's show promises to be the highlight of the season. I am certain that all of your stars will shine brightly this evening."

He smiled hugely, a secret joke that only he understood.

Then the curtain came up, and fifteen pallid moths began to mount the stage.

The stage was circular, rimmed by small oil lamps that burned low in their holders. Above us, something hung like a grand chandelier, and as we took our positions, I saw it slowly descend over the top of us. One of the girls, I cannot remember her name, gasped and started to shake as the great something seemed ready to smash us flat. She tried to bolt, but Stropacauf's voice cracked like a whip, freezing her in her flight.

"Do not move! Do not move a muscle! You will not ruin my vision, little moth, not tonight."

She squeaked, seeming to be on the verge of tears, and I looked over to see Stropacauf with a small, gleaming pistol in his hand.

As the shadowy mass descended from the ceiling, I saw what it was an instant before it encircled us.

It was a glass chimney, like one on the top of a gas lantern.

The runner, Ingred, her name was Ingred, looked enchanted as the milky glass hemmed her in. Her terror had turned to rapture as she looked at the glass prison that now encased us. She stepped shyly towards it, hand outstretched, and when the music started, she missed her cue. The rest of us began to dance, fourteen moths in hectic flight. We had been trained to stay within the confines of the stage. A silver circle had been built into the stage just inside the ring of lamps, and it acted as our parameter. We had been instructed not to cross that silver ring, but Ingred was preparing to do just that. It wasn't really her fault. Ingrid was fifteen and too young to be involved with something like this. She was tough, though. I suppose she had to be to make it this far. She was young, though, and her youth meant she was still prone to fancy.

As we danced, I heard many of them hiss at her to get back to the position. We had taken wing, dancing and flapping as we gyrated around our glass prison. As I danced, I saw the eyes of the crowd find me, their Lady Zunie. Stropacauf had placed me in the middle of the swarm, giving me a position of prominence. My costume had an eye pattern on the wings, a long flowing stripe that crested the tips, and I stood out amongst my plain white contemporaries. As I danced for that sea of lacquered masks, I could almost imagine them transforming into the rich and affluent men and women of high society that would grace the seats at the Moscow Theater or even The Grand Russian Ballroom. I was alone on that stage, dancing my heart out, and the crowds would applaud and cheer and shower their praise upon me. I would perform for Lords, for Kings, just as Madam Grutteive had, and the whole world would know that my star shown above all others.

I didn't see when Ingred stepped too close to the oil lamps, her small hand reaching out to touch the delicate glass.

I did not see her when the leg of her costume came too close to the lamp.

I saw her when she burst into flames, going up like a real moth when it has kissed the fire within the lamp.

Her screams echoed off the glass walls of the chamber, and pandemonium erupted soon after.

Ingrid ran towards the others, her high angelic voice slipping across our senses like a razor. She ran towards the closest dancer, arms open as she begged to be saved or killed or whatever she'd hoped to find there. As they touched, the girl's face an O of surprise, her costume erupted in flames, and she fell into another. That one lit as well. Then the two beside her, and then the two beside her, and so on and so on. From the center of the dancers, I was trapped in a growing pyre of flames and screams. It was chaos, girls running and beating at the glass, some still twirling and dancing drunkenly as they burned. I expected the glass to rise, I expected the crowd to come to our aid, but as I watched, I knew this was what they had been waiting for. They were all on their feet now, clapping and cheering as though this were the finest performance they'd ever seen.

Stropacauf came from backstage, and the applause reached a fever pitch as he raised his hands magnanimously.

"Thank you, thank you, any sacrifice for the sake of art. ANY SACRIFICE FOR THE SAKE OF ART!"

They were on their feet, their cheers and applause inaudible from inside the dome.

They cheered as we died, and I felt certain that this would be the end of me.

As the smoke and stench surrounded me, I saw someone in their midst who did not belong.

He was tall, taller than a man had any right to be, draped in a ratty black suit and gloves that hung in rags from his too-thin fingers. It seemed like I could hear his clapping above all the others, the only one I could hear clearly, and as his hands came together one last, climactic time, he lifted one of those hands to his mask. It was different from the others, a grinning fool done in red and black, and as it came away, I saw an equally happy skull beneath. The black eye sockets seemed to wink at me, the bright white skull grinning merrily, and as I lost consciousness amidst that hell of running bodies, his was the last thing I saw.

When I awoke, I was lying in the street behind the theater. My clothes had been badly burned, my hair was gone, burned away by the flames, but I was untouched and unhurt so far as I could tell. Several of Stropacauf's assistants were moving the bodies from the theater to the alley behind it, and the blackened corpses made me realize how lucky I had been.

I was the only survivor of Stropacauf's Moths Aflame.

He was never convicted of the fourteen girls that he burned alive. I know that Madam Grutteive was paid handsomely for her dancers, and I can only assume that the other studios who put forth girls were also compensated. Before you say this could not be, that no one would possibly fail to notice fourteen missing girls in a city like Moscow, you should remember that this was Russia in the early twenties. World War One had only ended a few years ago, and people disappearing was still something not wholly uncommon. Russia was a hard place to live, even in places like Moscow. People left for better things, I certainly did, and bodies often wound up in the canals and back alleys.

I went to Madam Grutteive's studio, and when she saw me, she wept.

"I had no idea he would do something like this. How was I to know what a monster he was?"

She gave me the money I had made from the performance, the money that would get her out of debt, and told me to flee.

"Stropacauf has powerful friends, friends who make the ones I owe money to look like minnows to a whale. Take this money, take the money that Louise died for, and build a new life somewhere where things like this do not happen."

"What about you?" I asked her, but she only smiled.

"I am going somewhere beyond them."

She killed herself later that night, drank poison in her office or some such thing. Georgette found her the next day, but I was on my way elsewhere by then. She found me years later and wrote to tell me these things. She mourned us, those dead and those gone, and told me she still ran the studio where Madam had always loved to be.

Stropacauf continued to produce shows until nineteen fifty-five. A group of men came to get him after one of his performances killed eight girls and burned a field of wheat to cinders. They hung him from a tree near the field, and it was too quick for the likes of him if you ask me.

I never danced under Lady Zunie again.

She died in Moscow in the fire that killed so many."

We sat there in the ensuing silence, the crackling fire the only sound other than my shallow respirations.

"Did you ever see him again?"

"No, but I never forgot that grinning apparition or the clear regard he had for me. I attribute my long life to that night. I stood before death, and he tipped his head to me. When I see him again, I want him to see that I was worthy of his regard."

The two of us sat looking at the fire for quite some time, my sleep forgotten as I watched the cinders dance, becoming ghost moths before my eyes.