Red Shoes

“She was aware of the cold polished floor beneath her cheek, of light blazing through the window. She was aware of the fact that the street beyond the window, two stories down, had changed. Things, shops, cars, people, were different from just a moment ago. Nothing moved. Nothing. And the stillness, well, the stillness scared her, and she felt that she, too, must not move. The sun was bright, just as bright as a few minutes ago when Mama had brought her to Mr. Jukovsky’s ballet studio.”—Helen Noakes

Waking Point

By Helen Noakes

SAN FRANCISCO California—(Hubris)—June 2025—Everything went quiet. More than quiet, beyond quiet. Nina could hear nothing but the beating of her heart. It was as if her ears were gone. But her eyes took in everything, and what she saw made no sense.

She was aware of the cold polished floor beneath her cheek, of light blazing through the window. She was aware of the fact that the street beyond the window, two stories down, had changed. Things, shops, cars, people, were different from just a moment ago. Nothing moved. Nothing. And the stillness, well, the stillness scared her, and she felt that she, too, must not move.

The sun was bright, just as bright as a few minutes ago when Mama had brought her to Mr. Jukovsky’s ballet studio.

Everything was different an hour ago when Mama said in Greek, “The best in Shanghai,” as she adjusted the white satin bow on top of Nina’s head. The pedicab bounced along, taking them from the French Quarter, where they lived, into town.

Today was a Greek day, according to Mama’s schedule. Nina had to speak it more often than Russian or English. “Since we are Greek,” Mama told her, “and you have to know your own language.” As for the other languages, it was Mama’s belief that Nina should learn as many as she and Papa spoke.

Nina loved going into town, especially if they passed the great lion sculptures in front of the Bank of Shanghai. They were so big and fierce, but she knew that the real ones, the ones she saw at the zoo, were as fuzzy as her dog, Ginger, and probably just as loving.

She would often order Ginger to be a lion when she played her game of Nina, Queen of the Jungle. And he readily complied, assuming the seated pose, watching her every move with his soft eager gaze, until he spoiled everything and wagged his tail.

Nina sighed at the memory. Did lions wag their tails? She pondered the question for a moment, until they passed a toy store, and she caught sight of an enormous stuffed black mouse wearing red shorts and oversized yellow shoes. “Mama,” she exclaimed, “Mickey Mouse came to Shanghai!”

“Umm,” Mama unbuttoned the front of Nina’s coat. “Too warm for buttons,” she said, and then sighed. “What a day!” Mama sounded happy and dreamy as she glanced up at the bright blue sky.

It was a glorious day. Nina knew this because Mama had said, “What a glorious day,” when they set off. Nina remembered the word “glorious” because it was new, and Mama told her it meant wonderful, and Nina agreed. For today was the day when she, finally, would put on those red shoes and dance like the beautiful lady in the movie.

When Nina asked about red satin shoes and tutus and sparkling little crowns Mama nodded. “We’ll see what Mr. Jukovsky says.”

Nina loved the Red Shoes movie and wondered why the dancer was so sad when she could dance so well. When she asked, Mama said, “You’ll know when you’re older.” And Nina had no choice but to wait until that faraway time.

When they arrived at Mr. Jukovsky’s studio, with its large room of gleaming floors, mirrored walls and a huge window, Nina felt frightened and excited at the same time.

He was very tall, Mr. Jukovsky, and wore tight black clothes that Nina had never seen a man wear before, and he had large blue eyes that shone with assessing judgment.

Nina knew he was deciding about her. She could tell, although she couldn’t say how. Mama looked at her that way sometimes, and Nina learned that at those moments it was best to be quiet and very still.

“Mesdemoiselles, au barre, immediatement. Et un! Et deux! Et trois!” Mr. Jukovsky addressed five little girls who had been dancing in the middle of the room. The girls ran to the barre on their tiptoes and began a series of coordinated kicks to a record of pretty music Mr. Jukovsky set on a record player.

He turned his attention to Mama. As he and Mama spoke, first in French, then in Russian, Nina watched the girls repeat the same series of kicks over and over again. She found their performance boring. Where were the red shoes? They wore black slippers. Where were their tutus? They wore pink leotards. Where were their sparkling crowns? Each girl’s hair was swept up into a tight little bun at the top of her head.

Some of the girls stared at Nina, curious. Others ignored her. Nina recognized, right away, which ones would be her friends. They were, she noted, all around her own age.

“She’s five,” Nina heard Mama say.

“The right age to start,” Mr. Jukovsky responded, as Nina tiptoed towards the large window. This must be the way I’m supposed to walk on this floor, she decided, recalling the little girls’ scamper towards the barre.

The window was the strangest she’d ever seen. It extended floor to ceiling and wall to wall, and it leaned slightly forward at the top, as if to get a better view of the tree-lined street below. It was then, as she stood at the window watching the traffic, the people rushing about their business, that the rumbling noise began.

Nina was rapt at the novelty of seeing people from this vantage point and watching a lady standing at a shop window, holding a little girl by the hand. The girl wore a large white bow on her head, a red coat and white shoes. Nina noticed the bow and the shoes because she, too, was wearing these in white.

She always noticed details. She couldn’t help it. Mama often said, “You see too much,” as if it were a bad thing. But that didn’t stop her from seeing too much. She just knew not to talk about what she saw, so Mama wouldn’t get angry.

The rumbling overhead came closer. Nina identified the sound as an airplane. Papa told her all about them and promised to take her to an air show one day, when she was a little older.

So many things will happen when I’m older, Nina thought, and recalled asking Papa what sort of show air might put on since you couldn’t see it. Papa laughed, saying, “You’re much too clever for your own good.” Nina wanted to ask what that meant, but something in Papa’s beaming face made her decide not to.

She didn’t get to see Papa often. He was always at work. And Nina knew that when she saw him, he wanted to be happy, not pestered. “Pestered” was a bad thing that had to do with seeing too much for her own good and asking too many questions. Mama would get angry when Nina was “being a pest.”  Nina didn’t want Papa to be angry.

“I wanted to be a pilot when I was a boy,” Papa told her, after he mentioned the air show. “But life intervened.” And then he explained what “intervened” meant, which made Nina very happy because she didn’t have to ask. “If you were a boy,” Papa continued, “you could have become a pilot.”

She wanted to know why she couldn’t be a pilot, but Papa picked up a wonderful book of stories about Greek gods and asked if she wanted to hear about Hercules and his many adventures, and Nina forgot all about pilots and airplanes and became enthralled in Hercules’ many trials and victories.

The rumbling sound was right above them. The building shook. There was a terrible explosion. Nina fell to the floor and her ears stopped working. That’s when she saw the street transformed. 

Cars and buildings were smashed and burning, people were lying on the pavement torn apart and bleeding. The chest of the lady at the shop window was split open by a great sheet of broken glass. The little girl’s head lay some distance away from her body, her bow still perfect. One of her white shoes lay near her foot. It was no longer white. It was red. Nina wondered how that could be and how the little girl’s head was ripped from her body and how people got all broken like that and decided never again to take her dolls apart to see what was inside them, and she trembled.

She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She quaked even harder now, and that scared her too, because she didn’t know what was happening. She thought of the rag toy Ginger tossed about and wondered if she was caught in some monster’s teeth. How did it find her?  Arms flailing, she tried to fend it off but there was nothing there. It was invisible, frightfully invisible.

Quite suddenly, she could hear again, loud sirens, screams, shouts. She could hear Mr. Jukovsky talking to the girls, heard Mama yell her name, felt Mama’s arms surround her, Mama’s hand cover Nina’s eyes.

She knew why Mama covered her eyes, but it was too late. She had seen the broken people, the little girl. Headless like one of my dolls, Nina thought, her teeth chattering. “Who broke her?” Nina sobbed. Mama was sobbing too, holding Nina tight to her chest and rocking back and forth.

Through her tears, Nina saw Mr. Jukovsky helping the terrified, crying little girls into their coats and settling them in a corner of the room, far away from mirrors and the window. “Madame,” he addressed Mama, “come away from the window.” He came over to help Mama to her feet and offered to carry Nina, but Mama wouldn’t let her go.

“We must get home!” Mama cried, her face contorted with fear. When Nina saw this, when she felt Mama tremble, she knew that Mama could do a lot of things, but she could not protect Nina from airplanes that tore people apart and turned white shoes red. For Mama, too, could be split by broken windowpanes, just as that little girl’s mother had been, and Nina, too, could be lying in the street, broken.

The idea so terrified Nina she couldn’t make a sound. All she could do was tighten her grip around Mama’s neck and try not to think about it. But the images of what she had seen, especially of the little girl and her mother, kept popping vividly into her mind. Every time they did, a stab of horror ripped through her. She shut her eyes tight, but that didn’t help. How did these pictures show up?

Shaking her head to be rid of them, Nina recalled the pictures that words formed in her mind when Papa or Grandmama read to her. They were beautiful pictures of fairy princesses riding across the skies on the backs of cranes, or great golden fish who spoke wisely of the true treasures of life, or benevolent dragons who lived in golden caves. But these pictures were not like that. They held no magic or pleasure, didn’t make her want to dream. These pictures hurt somewhere deep inside in a place she never knew could hurt, a place she couldn’t show Mama to clean and bandage, a place she never knew was there, a place that frightened her.

It seemed to Nina that if she talked about this dark, mysterious place where little girls’ heads were cut off and their mothers lay motionless, unable to put them back together, she would make those awful things happen all over again—maybe to her and to Mama.

“You can’t go home, yet. There may be another,” Mr. Jukovsky warned. “Sit here, by the children. It’s a load-bearing wall.”

“Another what?” Mama’s voice quavered.

“Bomb, Madame.”

“Bomb?”

“Yes. Mao Zedong,” Mr. Jukovsky spoke calmly, but Nina saw the dark gleam of fury in his eyes.

“You’re . . . you’re saying that Mao is bombing us? But Shanghai is safe, we were told . . .”

“Lies! That’s what we were told,” Mr. Jukovsky interrupted. “My advice is to get out. Get your family out. Now! While you can.”

Nina was very confused. How could it be? Mao? That was her cat’s name. A name she and Amma had selected for the stray that found its way to their door one evening. It was, Amma said, the name for cat, in Chinese. Mao would never do such a terrible thing, Nina wanted to protest but was crying too hard to speak.

How is Amma? The question sent an icy jolt through Nina. Amma who had taught her Chinese, who gave Nina her first chopsticks, who tended to Nina when Mama was sick! Was she torn by the airplane, too? The thought so terrified Nina, she could hardly breathe; her tears were punctuated by gasps for air.

And then there was the look on Mama’s face as she stared at Mr. Jukovsky, “You think . . .”  Nina had never seen Mama so lost, nor felt her grip Nina so tightly.

Jukovsky nodded, “Oh yes, Madame. China is no longer safe for the likes of us. Mao will win.”

In the silence that followed, police and ambulance sirens blared. The little girls huddled close to each other and bawled. Mama tried to soothe them, to soothe Nina, but it was no use.

“Will you stay with them, please. I’ll try to call their parents. If the telephones are working, that is,” Mr. Jukovsky went into another room. In a minute they heard him talking to someone.

“The telephones are working,” Mama said, her voice strangely hollow. “At least the telephones work,” she said again, laughing and sobbing at the same time.

But Nina wasn’t listening to Mr. Jukovsky, to Mama, to the sirens and noises in the street. All she could hear was the scratchy sound of the record player, whose needle had long finished with the pretty music and was poised over a black shiny surface, empty of melody or song.  All she could think about was the red shoe, the little girl’s red shoe that had once been white.

Editor’s Note: The images of Shanghai above date from a decade before the events of Noakes’ story. For those interested in reading further about the later Chinese Civil War (1945-1949), the Britannica’s entry provides a bare bones account. A TIME Magazine story, “‘Sitting on Top of Liquid Dynamite.’ Inside a Long-Lost Eyewitness Account of the Communist Takeover of Shanghai” provides another contemporaneous telling.