The Dance Teacher of Paris

Contents Title PageCopyrightDedicationPrologueChapter 1: AdeleChapter 2: AdeleChapter 3: FleurChapter 4: AdeleChapter 5: AdeleChapter 6: AdeleChapter 7: FleurChapter 8: AdeleChapter 9: AdeleChapter 10: FleurChapter 11: AdeleChapter 12: AdeleChapter 13: FleurChapter 14: AdeleChapter 15: AdeleChapter 16: FleurChapter 17: AdeleChapter 18: FleurChapter 19: AdeleChapter 20: FleurChapter 21: AdeleChapter 22: FleurChapter 23: AdeleChapter 24: FleurChapter 25: AdeleChapter 26: AdeleChapter 27: FleurChapter 28: AdeleChapter 29: AdeleChapter 30: FleurChapter 31: AdeleChapter 32: AdeleChapter 33: FleurChapter 34: AdeleChapter 35: AdeleChapter 36: FleurChapter 37: AdeleChapter 38: AdeleChapter 39: FleurChapter 40: FleurChapter 41: FleurChapter 42: AdeleAcknowledgementsAbout the AuthorAbout Embla Books First published in Great Britain in 2023 byBonnier Books UK Limited4th Floor, Victoria House, Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1B 4DAOwned by Bonnier BooksSveavägen 56, Stockholm, SwedenCopyright © Suzanne Fortin, 2023All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.The right of Suzanne Fortin to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.ISBN: 9781471412127This book is typeset using Atomik ePublisherEmbla Books is an imprint of Bonnier Books UKwww.bonnierbooks.co.uk To my children, Liam, Hayley, Ross and Esther and to my grandchildren, Albie and Elsie PrologueFleurWest Sussex, October 2015Fleur sat down in her grandmother’s chair, placing the satin ballet shoe on her lap and her hands gently on the armrests. Closing her eyes, she brushed her thumbs across the sun-faded upholstery. Whenever Fleur thought of her grandmother, Lydia, she always pictured her sitting here, in the crook of the bay window, looking out across the green with the sound of the sea lapping at the shoreline just beyond the next row of houses that enjoyed their superior sea-fronted position.Fleur drew in a deep breath and could detect the faintest trace of Lydia’s favourite perfume – one Fleur had bought for her on many a birthday. It was Rive Gauche by Yves Saint Laurent. Lydia had been wearing the 1970s classic for as long as Fleur could remember. It was only in the last few months that Fleur understood the significance behind the name of the fragrance, which referred to the southern side of the river Seine – the Left Bank. But then Fleur hadn’t known very much about her grandmother’s past until recently, certainly not the time during the war when Lydia was a ten-year-old child living in Paris under the German occupation and attending the school opposite what was now the Musée d’Orsay in the Left Bank district of the city.Fleur released her breath and opened her eyes, her gaze settling on the Pierre Valois miniature watercolour hanging in the alcove by the fireplace, depicting a ballerina at the barre. Another hidden connection to Lydia’s past that had been in plain sight all these years. Fleur’s gaze travelled to the ballet shoe and her heart contracted as it had done ever since she’d found out the story behind it. The fabric was worn from hours of dancing and now delicate from the passing of time. The ribbon was frayed at the edges but still intact. It was a shoe that had graced the boards of the dance studio in Paris; pirouetting, skipping and hopping, rising and falling. It was a shoe that had held so much love and hope over many years. Another connection between Chapter 1AdeleParis, May 1942Adele Basset looked up from the piano, calling out the sequence of steps to her dance class. Today was ballet and whilst her students aged between five and ten years old were probably never going to forge a career out of dancing, their unbridled enthusiasm and obvious delight made up for their lack of technical ability and natural grace.Today the sun was shining in through the bank of full-length windows that lined the side of the studio, spotlighting the children and bouncing off the mirrored wall. The room could really do with a freshen up. The paint was peeling in one corner and two wooden floorboards needed replacing, having been repaired far too many times. However, paint and wood were scarce after two years of German occupation.‘Et demi-plié, knees over toes … Rise … Et deuxiéme. Port de bras, follow your arm to the side.’ Adele called out the instructions above the sound of the piano. ‘Excellent! Daniel, parfait!’ Strictly speaking, it wasn’t excellent or perfect, but Adele had always been adamant her after-school dance lessons were not to reach perfection in performance, only perfection in joy.What more could anyone ask for these children as the war in Europe raged on? The hour after school each day was an escape for them and for her after a long day teaching. Here at the classes, through the medium of dance, they could be anything and anywhere they wanted. Goodness knows, they deserved the little pleasure and respite the hour brought – they had already witnessed horrors children had no right to see. Adele rose from her position at the piano, gesturing with her hands for the children to carry on with the steps, just the way her own mother had taught her and her sister, Lucille. Their mother, Marianne, had been the most beautiful and skilled of dancers and trained with the Ballet de l’Opéra national de Paris – the Paris Opera Ballet. A career tragically cut short by a motor vehicle accident, and later her life by illness. Adele felt the familiar surge of grief that accompanied any